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CHAPTERS

HISTORY OF JOURNALISM

VOL. I.

PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

LONDON

ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS

^f)apfers

IN

^^e ^istovQ of gourtialistn

H^Rs^FOX BOURNE

AUTHOR OF 'THE LIFE OF JOHN LOCKe' 'a MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEV

' ENGLISH MERCHANTS * * ENGLISH SEAMEN UNDER THE TUDORS '

• THE STORY OF OUR COLONIES ' ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

CHATTO & VVINDUS, PICCADILLY
1887

/}-2^^te-/

cornell\

UNIVERSITYj
LIBRARY^

PREFACE.

A COMPLETE account of English Newspapers, past and
present, would fill many volumes, which, when written,
would probably find very few readers. In this book
only such a selection from the profuse details at hand
is ofi'ered as may sufficiently indicate the nature /and
quality of the whole, and may serve especially to show
the connection of journalism in its several stages with
the literary and the political history of our country.
So much as is here said about the chronology and
mechanism of newspapers, from their first rude com-
mencement down to the present day, will, I hope, fill
many gaps and correct many errors in previous works
on the subject. But my aim has chiefly been to call
attention to the ways in which newspapers have in-
fluenced the general progress of society — sometimes
hindering as well as helping it, and have been used as
agents for such help or hindrance.
Y From Milton's day onwards, the value of news-
papers as auxiliaries to their public work, whether

vi PREFACE

good or bad, has been recognised by politicians as
like and unlike one another as Bolingbroke, Walpole,
Burke, Fox, Pitt, Canning, Peel, Russell, Palmerston,
and Gladstone ftond while several of these, and many
other statesmen, have themselves been journalists, they
have been assisted or resisted in each generation by
professed men of letters like Defoe, Swift, Steele,
' Fielding, Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, and Albany Fon-
blanque — not to mention any writers of our own
times. The relations of newspapers with politics, in
successive generations and under various direction, are
worth understanding. So, too, are the relations of
newspapers with literature. Some of our most eminent
journalists have not been men of letters by profession,
and some famous authors have not enhanced their fame
by their newspaper work. Though journalism is a
branch of literature, moreover, it has rules and methods
of its own ; and much that may be good as journalism
is faulty as literature. But journalism has progressed
as a phase of authorship, no less than as a powerful
engine for the political advancement of the community,
during the past two centuries and more. It has only
been possible for me to take a rapid survey of this
progress. Yet I trust that I have been able to throw
light on some lines of our nation's growth which have
hitherto been overlooked or inadequately traced.

PREFACE vu

Many incidents and episodes in the history of jour-
nalism had previously been touched upon by Nichols,
Chalmers, and other antiquaries, and by writers of
gossip-books and memoirs ; but the first published effort
to treat of that history as a whole or in a separate work
appears in ' The Fourth Estate:, Contributions towards
a History of Newspapers and of the Liberty of the
Press,' written by Frederick Knight Hunt in 1850.
This painstaking and instructive work was followed in
1859 by * The History of British JoumaKsm from the
Foundation of the Newspaper Press in England to the
Repeal of the Stamp Act in 1855,' from the pen of
Alexander Andrews. From both books I have obtained
much help ; but, diligent as their writers were, they left
many things unsaid and said many things inaccurately.
Their narratives closed, moreover, at dates now some-
what remote, Knight Hunt — the more trustworthy
though the less compendious of the two — being in-
tentionally reticent, indeed, about much that had
happened in his own time. Since then we have had
from the late James Grant two stout volumes on ' The
Newspaper Press : its Origin, Progress, and Present
Position,' and a supplementary volume on ' The Metro-
politan Weekly and Provincial Press,' which were pub-
lished in 1871 and 1872, but which, though some of his
own reminiscences are acceptable, did not contribute

viii PREFACE

much towards elucidation of the subject. Mr. Charles
Pebody's 'English Journalism and the Men who have
Made it,' issued in 1882, is a bright little shilling
volume, mainly compiled from Grant's book, but avoid-
ing most of its blunders and containing some fresh and
welcome information. Neither this, however, nor Mr.
Joseph Hatton's ' Journalistic London : being a Series
of Sketches of the Famous Pens and Papers of the Day,'
also issued in 1882, occupies much of the ground on
which I have ventured to tread. Nor do such other
books 'as Mr. Henry Sampson's comprehensive and en-
tertaining ' History of Advertising from the Earliest
Times ' and Mr. Mason Jackson's ' Pictorial Press ;
its Origin and Progress.'

Except as regards recent events, and matters of
general history and biography concerning which it
would have been mere pedantry to cite authorities, I
have been careful to specify in the text or in foot-
notes all the sources of my information as to facts and
anecdotes given in these volumes. A great many state-
ments in the later chapters are unvouched for, as they
are based either on my own knowledge or on the in-
formation of friends.

To all these friends — some of long standing and
some who, strangers before, have shown their friend-
ship by the valuable help they have rendered me — I

PREFACE IX

tender my hearty thanks, which are none the less
hearty because so naany prefer to be anonymous that
I think it better to mention no names at all. I must,
however, acknowledge my great indebtedness to the
authorities of the British Museum, both for the ready
help they have given in answering my inquiries, and for
the special facilities they afforded me towards consult-
ing the splendid collection of old and new newspapers
in their charge.

By way of excuse for my dealing with so large a
theme as newspaper history, I may mention that my
own experience as a journalist extends over more than
twenty years. That experience has helped me to much
of the information here given, and is my warrant for
the comments and suggestions I have ventured to make.
If I have devoted rather more space — less than a dozen
pages in all — to the affairs of ' The Examiner ' and
' The Weekly Dispatch ' while they were under my
charge, and to other papers to which I have contributed,
than to some matters of equal or greater importance,
it was only because I had fuller and more precise
knowledge of those papers than of others with which
I am acquainted only at second hand and as a reader,
and was thus better able to use them for purposes of
general illustration. In the references it seemed neces-
sary to make to public questions connected with news-

X PREFACE

paper politics and tactics I have not attempted to con-
ceal my own opinions ; but, though living persons and
present concerns have been frankly spoken about on
occasion, I trust that I have in no case exceeded the
limits of fair and honest criticism, or allowed personal
feeling to bias either the praise or the blame that it
appeared incumbent on me to offer.

41 Peiobt Road, Bedford Park, London, W.
November 3, 1887.

CONTENTS

THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTEE I.

OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS. 1621-1660.

Old newswriters and newsmongers — News pamphlets — Nathaniel
Butter, and his ' Courant ' and ' Weekly News ' — Newspaper
difficulties under James I. and Charles I. — The 'Diumals,'
'Passages,' and 'Mercuries' of the Civil War time— John
Birkenhead and ' Mercurius Aulicus ' — Marchmont Nedham and
' Mercurius Britannicus ' — Seventeenth century ' mercenary
pens ' — -The Long Parliament's licensing ordinance — John
Milton's ' Areopagitica ' — Nedham and ' Mercurius Pragma-
ticus ' — GUbert Mabbott's censorship — 'The Perfect Diurnal,'
and ' Mercurius Politicus ' — Milton's censorship and his work in
' Mercurius Politicus ' — Other commonwealth censors — Ned-
ham's later career ......... 1

CHAPTEE n.

UNDER THE LICENSING ACTS. 1660-1695.

Early _ogntrol ov£r_the piess^^^he Licensing Aefc:;:fibarlps 11. 'a
"lioencers ; John Birkenhead and Roger L'Estrange — ' The King-
dom's Intelligencer ' and ' Mercurius Publicus ' — ' The Intelli-
gencer ' and ' The News ' — L'Esfcrange's censorship — The case
of Twyn— Origin of ' The London Gaaette '—'The City Mercury '
and 'Mercurius Librarius' — In lieu of the Licensing Act —
Chief Justice Scroggs's law — Henry Carr and 'The Weekly
Packet ' — ' Heraclitus Ridens ' and L'Estrange's ' Observator '
— Coffee-houses and newsletters — ^Newspapers under James II.
and after the accession of William III. — Revival and abandon-
ment of the Licensing Act . . " - . " ' '. . . . 2J

Xll CONTENTS OF

CHAPTEE III.

OUTCOME OF THE EEVOLUTION. 1695-1714.

PAGE

Newspapers of William III.'s reign :— ' The Flying Post ' ; ' Intelli-
gence ' ; ' The Postboy ' ; ' The Postman ' ; ' The English Post '
— Dawks's and Dyer's newsletters — Newswriters in trouble ;
Dyer, Salisbury, and Tutchin — Tutchin's ' Observator ' — Daniel
Defoe and his ' Review '— ' The Daily Courant '— ' The Evening
Post '—Choice of newspapers in 1709— Steele and Addison, and
' The Tatler '—Their scandalous rivals—' The Spectator '—The
Tory government and ' The Examiner ' — ' The Whig Examiner '
and ' The Medley ' — Jonathan Swift — Mrs. Manley — Swift's
spite — The newspaper stamp duty and advertisement tax —
Journalism under Bolingbroke — ' The Guardian ' and ' The
Englishman ' — Steele's quarrel with the government and expul-
sion from the House of Commons — Walpole on the liberty of
the press ........ ... 54

CHAPTEE IV.
IN WALPOLB'S DATS. 1714-1742.

Sir Robert Walpole's policy towards the press — Addison's and
Steele's later work : ' The Freeholder,' ' The Plebeian,' and
' The Old Whig ' — London newspapers in 1714 — Defoe's employ-
ments under the Whigs; 'Mercurius Politicus,' 'Dormer's
Newsletter,' 'Mist's Journal,' ' The Whitehall Evening Post,'
and ' The Daily Post ' — Defoe's place in journalism — John Tren-
chard and Thomas Gordon ; their ' Cato Letters ' in ' The
London Journal' — Press prosecutions in George I.'s reign —
' The True Briton ' and other papers — ' The Craftsman ' ; Boling-
broke and his ' Oldcastle Letters ' — Walpole's corrupting influ-
ence— Some Whig hacks — ' The London Crier,' and ' The
Grub Street Journal ' — Old-fashioned parliamentary reporting ;
Edward Cave and Samuel Johnson ...... 96

CHAPTEE V.

walpole's lb&acies. 1742-1760.

Results of Walpole's policy — Heniy Fielding's journalism ; ' The

Champion,' ' The True Patriot,' and ' The Jacobite Journal '

Some other journalists : Guthrie, Amhurst, and Ralph — Field-
ing's ' Covent Garden Journal ' — ' The Public Advertiser ' and
other newspapers — Some Georgian essay-papers — 'The Test'
and ' The Con-Test ' — Johnson and Foote on the journalism of
their time .......... i3j^

THE FIRST VOLUME XIU

CHAPTEE VI.
WILKES AND JUNIUS. 1755-1772.

PAOK

The transition from Whig to Tory supremacy — Entinck and 'The
Monitor '—Smollett and ' The Briton '—John Wilkes and ' The
North Briton' — Charles Churchill — The earlier numbers of
'The North Briton' — 'The Auditor' — Wilkes's opposition to
Lord Bute — No. 45 — The persecution of Wilkes — His imprison-
ment for libel and expulsion from the House of Commons — His
ultimate triumphs — The letters of Junius in ' The Public Adver-
tiser'— Junius's share in tlie Wilkes controversy — His attacks
on Sir William Draper and the Duke of Grafton — His letter to
George III 149

CHAPTEE VII.

THE WOODFALIiS AND OTHERS. 1760-1788.

The Woodfall family — Henry Sampson Woodfall and ' The Public
Advertiser' — 'The Public Ledger' and other papers of the
time — ' The Middlesex Journal ' — Thomas Chatterton's news-
paper work — Prosecutions of Henry Sampson Woodfall and
others for libelling the king — ^Lord Mansfield's ruhng — Wilham
Woodfall and ' The Morning Chronicle ' — The reporting of
parliamentary debates— The struggle between ministers and
printers — ' The Morning Chronicle ' under William Woodfall —
' The Morning Post ' under Henry Bate and others — Some
other journals — Crabbe on newspapers 191

CHAPTEE VIII.

THE LIBEL ACT. BEFOEE AND AFTER 1792.

The results of Lord Mansfield's ruling— Mr. Serjeant Glyn's
motion — Dowdeswell's Libel Bill — Several press prosecutions —
Home Tooke and others — Erskine's arguments — Fox's Libel
Act — The political situation in Pitt's time — The crusade against
sedition — Pitt's newspaper legislation and his management of
the country papers — The reaction 229

XIV CONTENTS OF

CHAPTER IX.

IN JAMES PEEET'S TIME. 1779-1811.

PADS

James Pen7's start in life — His work on ' The General Advertiser '
and 'The Gazetteer '—' The Morning Herald' under Bate
Dudley— The first John Walter and 'The Daily Universal
Register '—The commencement of ' The Times '— ' The World '
and ' The Diary ' — ' The Morning Chronicle ' under Perry — His
contributors — His enterprise — -Walter's competition with hin> —
Daniel Stuart and his connections — Peter Stuart and ' The Star '
— ' The Morning Post ' and ' The Courier ' under Daniel Stuart —
Progress of 'The Times' under the second John Walter- Some
other papers ; ' The Morning Advertiser,' ' The British Press,'
'The Day,' ' The Aurora,' 'The Globe,' 'The Traveller,' 'The
Sun.' and ' The True Sun ' — The weekly papers : ' Johnson's
Sunday Monitor,' 'The Observer,' ' Bell's Weekly Messenger,'
and ' Bell's Weekly Dispatch ' 248

CHAPTEE X.

DANIEL stuaet's weitees. 1795-1811.

Daniel Stuart's editing of ' The Morning Post ' — Sir James Mackin-
tosh— Samuel Taylor Coleridge's work on ' The Post,' and
Stuart's relations with him — His poems and leading articles —
Other contributors : Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and
Charles Lloyd — Charles Lamb's ' Fashionable Intelligence ' —
George Lane's assistant editing — Coleridgt-'s later dealings with
Stuart — His work on ' The Courier,' and his difficulties with
Peter Street its editor — His retirement from journalism . . 292

CHAPTER XI.

ANTI-JACOBINS AND EBFOEMEES. 1797-1815.

Effects of the French Revolution on English journalism — Coleridge
on Jacobinism — Ministerial terror and terrorism — Canning and
' The Anti- Jacobin ' — Pitt's Newspaper Act and press prosecu-
tions— William Cubbett and his passage from Toryism to
Radicalism — ' The Porcupine' and ' Cobbett's Political Register'
— The Peltier case — Prosecutions of Cobbett — John Hunt and
Leigh Hunt—' The News ' — ' The Examiner ' — Its political atti-
tude and quarrels with the government — Its progress — Its
mockery of the Prince Regent — Leigh Hunt in prison— John
Hunt's character ....... . 3^5

THE FERST VOLUME XV

CHAPTEE XII.

DUEINQ THE EEGBNCT. 1811-1820.

FAUE

Tory persecution of Radical newspapers — The prosperous papers —
Progress of ' The Times ' — The second John Walter's intro-
duction of steam printing — His writers and editors : Edward
Sterling, Henry Crabb Bobinson, Sir John Stoddart, Thomas
Barnes, and John Payne Collier — ' The New Times ' — ' The
Morning Chronicle ' — James Perry and his staff : John Black,
Thomas Moore, and WiUiam Hazlitt — The other daily papers —
' The Literary Gazette '— ' The Indicator '—Leigh Hunt and ' The
Examiner' — A foreigner's view of English journalism in 1820 . 352

CHAPTER XIIL

AFTEE TWO CENTUEIEB. 1820.

A review of the progress of English newspapers and, .journalism —
The rise of the Scotch, English provincial, Irish, and American
press 373

ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS

CHAPTER I.

OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS.
1621—1660.

English newspapers only began in the second half of
the eighteenth century to assume their modern shape,
and to claim the place they now hold in politics and
literature. But they were started early in the seven-
teenth century, and their preliminaries can be traced
much farther back.

Newsletters preceded newspapers. In far-off times,
before the art of printing was known, few who were
not ecclesiastics could read or write, and those, them-
selves chiefly ecclesiastics, whose pubhc duties made
them seek or need more news of the day than was
conveyed in official minutes, or circulated in alehouse
gossip or the tittle-tattle of the market-place, had to
trust to the correspondence of friends or of hired agents
for their information. So it continued long after the
printing-press had been invented. During the reigns
of Queen Elizabeth and James I., ministers of state,
merchants, and all others whose interests or obli-
gations extended beyond ear-shot, had newswriters

VOL. I. B

2 OUR EAELIEST NEWSPAPERS oh. i.

in their pay.^ The many who could not afford to
employ news-writers of their own picked xvp at second-
hand such chit-chat, true or false, trivial or serious, as
was allowed to reach them by the fortunate few ; and
among the gossip-haunts in London, three hundred
years or so ago, before coffee-houses were in vogue, the
old Exchange and the old church of St. Paul were
famous. ' These be news cast abroad to feed the
common sort,' says one in John Florio's 'Second Fruits,'
published in 1591. ' Prognostications, news, devices,
and letters from foreign countries, good Master Cfesar,
are but used as confections to feed the common people
withal.' To which good Master Cassar replies, ' I am
almost of your mind, for I seldom see these written
reports prove true. A man miTst give no more credit
to Exchange news and Paul's news than to fugitives'
promises and players' fables.'

With or without good cause, it was the fashion of
book-writers to make merry over the readiness of our
ancestors to be gulled by primitive newsmongers ; but
written and verbal newsmongering was a profitable
trade, and printed newsmongering was soon combined
with it. ' If any read nowadays,' Burton lamented in
his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' in 1614, 'it is a play-
book or a pamphlet of news.' Perhaps the trade was
not too much caricatured by Ben Jonson in ' The Staple
of News,' which was performed in 1625. In this heavy
comedy Cymbal is ' master of the Staple,' that is, owner
or manager of a shop or office for the collection and dis-

' We are told, for instance, how, quite late in Elizabeth's reign, Sir
Robert Sidney, Sir Philip Sidney's younger brother, ' kept a correspond-
ence with Rowland White, the post-master, a notable busy man, who
constantly writ over to him at Flushing, when he was resident there as
governor, the news and intrigues of the court,' and how, in consideration
of White's services, Sir Robert ' allowed him a salary.' — Collins, Memo-rials
of State, preface, and vol. ii. p. 4, note.

1621. IN BEN JONSON'S TIME 3

tribution of news, and lie is proud to describe his
business to young Pennyboy : —

This is the outer room, where my clerks sit,
And keep their sides, the register in their midst :
The examiner — he sits private there within :
And here I have my several rolls and files
Of news by the alphabet, and all are put
Under their heads.

Tbe heads are various — ' authentical and apocryphal ;
news of doubtful credit, as barbers' news ; tailors' news ;
porters' and watermen's news ; news of the season ;
vacation news, term news, and Christmas news ; news
of the faction, as the Keformed news, Protestant news,
and Pontifical news,' and much else, causing Pennyboy
to exclaim, ' This is fine, and bears a brave relation ! '

One of Cymbal's customers is a countrywoman, who
hurries in, asking for

A groat's worth of news, I care not what.
To carry down this Saturday to our vicar.

And the newsvendor's answer is —

O, you are a butter- woman ! Ask Nathaniel,
The clerk there.'

Ben Jonson was here punning on the name ' of
Nathaniel Butter, a name memorable iu newspaper
history.

Long before any regular newspaper was produced, ]
and while the rigid Tudor laws against unlicensed/
priating were in force, stray news-pamphlets and news-
ballads were issued, some of them with the sanction,
others in defiance, of the authorities.' They were small
quarto books, of twelve or more pages, with no more

' The Staple of News, act i. scene 2.

^ Among the earliest extant were News out of Kent, in doggerel rhyme, \
printed in 1661, and New News, containing a slwrt Rehearsal of SUikeley's I
atid Morris's Rebellion, printed in 1579.

b2

4 OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS ch. i.

than three or four hundred words in a page, and
generally, when not reporting noteworthy occurrences
in England, they merely translated and reproduced the
summaries of foreign news-writers.^ One of these publi-
cations, entitled, ' News from Spain,' was ' imprinted at
London for Nathaniel Butter,' in 1611. Another, and
more important, was ' The Courant, or Weekly News
from Foreign Parts,' ' taken out of the High Dutch,'
and dated October 9, 1621, of which Butter wis also
the publisher.

Butter seems to have been during at least thirty
years the busiest English vendor of printed news, and
to him must be accorded foremost rank among the pre-
cursors of journalism in our country. His occupation
was chiefly that of ' a writer, or transcriber rather,
of books,' as he calls himself in one of his publica-
tions ; but he sometimes appears as a printer, and
among his rivals or associates during the reign of
James 1. were two firms of printers or booksellers —
Nicholas Bourne and Thomas Archer, whose shops
were ' at the Royal Exchange, and in Pope's-head
Palace,' and Nathaniel Newberry and William Sheffard,
' under St. Peter's Church, in Cornhill, and in Pope's-
head AUey, at the sign of the Star.' We may take it
for granted that Butter was the manager of some such
establishment for the collection and dissemination of
gossip as Ben Jonson introduces us to in ' The Staple

' The Gazzetta of Venice, an official news-sheet which began to be cir-
culated in manuscript early in the sixteenth century, and to appear in
print before its close, and other foreign pioneers of journalism, such as
the Cologne Oallo-Bdgims, started in 1688, now and then found their way
into England. The English Mercurie, of which four drafts in manuscript
and three printed numbers are in the British Museum, and which latter
purported to have been ' imprinted at London ' in 1588, and to have been
'pubUshed by authority, for the suppression of false reports,' accepted as
genuine by Chalmers and other antiquaries, was in 1839 shown by Thomas
Watts to be a clumsy forgery.

1621-1622. NATHANIEL BUTTER'S 'WEEKLY NEWS' 5

of News,' circulating it in written letters and by word
of mouth as well as through the printing press, and
that in this latter department he was assisted by Bourne
and Archer, Newberry and Sheffard, and others, as
publishers. Whatever may have been the nature and
variety of the unprinted news that he distributed, his
printed work was chiefly made up of translations from
foreign newsletters, and even these were of the baldest
'description. To him, however, belongs the credit of
having started the plan of issuing periodical news-
sheets, which were the forerunners of regular news-
papers.

Of ' The Courant, or Weekly News,' only the num-
ber for October 9, 1621, with that title, is known to us,
and, though a goodly assortment of similar news-pam-
phlets of later date, evidently parts of one series, are
extant, so many appear to have been lost, and there is so
much confusion arising from variations of title, and from
the fi-equent substitution of other names for Butter's in
the imprints, that it is impossible to ascertain the order
and sequence in which they were issued, or to discrimi-
nate between Butter's own share in the undertaking and
the shares of Bourne, Archer, and others who were evi-
dently io some sort of partnership with him. Most of
these pamphlets are called ' Weekly News,' but nearly
all have different sub-headings, and in some the head-
ings are quite distinct, nor are the dates at regular
intervals. Thus, in the ' Weekly News ' for August 23,
1622, Butter announced that ' the two former "News,"
the one dated the 2nd, the other the 13th, do carry
a like title and have dependence one upon another,
which manner of printing he doth purpose to continue
weekly, by God's assistance, from the best and most
certain intelligence ; ' but he straightway broke his
rule, producing ' Two Great Battles very lately Fought,'

6 OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS oh. i.

on September 2, and ' Count Mansfield's Proceedings
since the Last Battle,' on September 9, and styling
neither of them ' Weekly News.' It did not occur to
him to number his papers till October 15, 1622, when
what may be regarded as the first of a fresh series
of ' Weekly News ' was marked No. 1. After that the
numbering was consecutive for a twelvemonth, another
start with No. 1 being made in October 1623 ; but the
titles were still varied. Sometimes we have ' The News
of this Present Week,' sometimes ' The Last News,'
sometimes ' More News,' and occasionally quite different
headings, as in the number styled ' Brief Abstracts out
of Divers Letters of Trust, Eelating the News of this
Present Week.' ^

From all this, and much more which it would be
tedious to recount, it appears that journalism was in its
infancy when Butter and his friends worked at it.
Our earliest newspapers were certainly brought out
very irregularly. They were also but scantily supplied
with such information as we look for in newspapers
nowadays. Home affairs being eschewed through fear
of the licencer, foreign events of importance were for
the most part dealt with very superficially, and trivial
concerns often received inordinate notice. Such few
comments as were given along with the scraps of news
were shallow and commonplace.^ Faulty and slight,

' Valuable collections of these old news-pamphlets or primitive news-
papers are in the British Museum and the Bodleian libraries. Nichols
gives a careful list in his Literary AnecdoUs, vol. iv. pp. 39-97. See also
'Knigh.tB.unt'& Fourth Estate, chapters ii. and iii., and Alexander Andrews's,
History of British Journalism, chapters ii., iii., and iv. In both these
works, however, there are several blunders which the careful student wUl
detect.

^ Instance this paragraph in the Weeldtj News for October 1622 :—
' A true relation of the cruel execution done in Ommelburg, a town in the
bishopric of Mentz, upon the persons of two ministers or preachers of the
Gospel, by the instigation of the Jesuits. 'Tis most manifestly known to.

1622-1641. ^^ATHA^^EL BUTTER'S 'WEEKLY NEWS' 7

however, as were the primitive newspapers of the
closing years of James I.'s reign, they made a good
beginning of the enterprise that was to grow in later
generations.

The greater stringency of the press censorship
under Charles I., culminating in the memorable and
execrable Star Chamber ' decree concerning printing '
of July 11, 1637, which revived all tbe tyranny of
Tudor times, hampered even Butter's modest trade in
newsmongering, but his ' Weekly News ' continued to
be issued at intervals, with frequent interruptions from
the Hcencers, and in spite of other obstacles, till 1641.
The last number which has come down to us, entitled
' The Continuation of the Foreign Occurrences for Five
Weeks Last Past,' and dated January 11 in that year,
contains this curious announcement to the ' courteous
reader ' : ' We had thought to have given over printing
our foreign avisoes, for that the licencer (out of a par-
tial affection) would not often let pass apparent truth,
and in other things oftentimes so cross and alter, which
made us almost weary of printing. But he being
vanished and that office fallen upon another, more

all the world that hatred, envy, and dissension reign mightily nowadays ;
the son is against the father, and the sister against the brother, and in gene-
ral we are so exasperated one against another that if we could drown one
another in a spoon, we would not fetch a pail ; as partly appeareth by this
present example. Johannes van der Veech and Lambertus Liber, being
two Protestant preachers, and having disputed against certain priests at
Krugsganck, the Jesuits caused them to be apprehended and afterwards
most cruelly to be executed within the town of Ommelburg, August 30,
1622, when the hangman with red-hot pincers pulled the flesh from their
bones (so that a heart made of stone would have taken compassion on
them), and put them to death with great martyrisation. But they have
suffered it patiently, as a sheep that is brought to the slaughter-house.
About tliree days after the same, one of the priests, who was called Pater
or Father John, aged ninety-six years, was taken about twelve o'clock
from his table and was never seen afterwards. Therefore let us pray unto
God that He will not judge us according to our deserts, but grant us ever-
lasting salvation.'

8 OUK EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS oh. i.

understanding in these foreign affairs, and, as you will
find, more candid, we are again, by the favour of his
majesty and the state, resolved to go on printing, if we
shall find the world to give a better acceptation of them
than of late by their weekly buying them. It is well
known these novels ' — that is, news or newspapers — ' are
well esteemed in all parts of the world but here by the
more judicious, which we can impute to no other but
the discontinuance of them and the uncertain days of
publishing them, which, if the post fail us not, we shall
keep a constant day every week therein, whereby every
man may constantly expect them.'

These sad yet sanguine sentences remind us that the
arbitrariness and harshness of the licensmg authorities
were not the only hindrances to newspaper prosperity
in Stuart times, though these, of course, did quite as
much harm indirectly as directly. It was bad enough
to be liable to delays in the mails and difficulties with
the printers, but it was worse to have to trim and twist
every item of news that could bear any offensive inter-
pretation so as to propitiate the censors and avoid the
risk of incurring the wrath of courtiers and politicians
in office. Readers would naturally be few when they
could never be certain of receiving on the appointed
days even such scanty and garbled information as was
allowed to appear in the ' Weekly News.' Butter, how-
ever, had himself partly to blame. Hampered as he
was by his surroundings, it was his own fault, or a mis-
fortune he might have prevented, that his mode of
writing was not merely tedious and graceless, but often
ungrammatical.

The ' Weekly News,' promising to begin a new term
of life with the number of January 11, 1641, seems to
have died on that day ; but in the same year Butter
took part in an extension of newspaper enterprise

16il. UNDER THE LONG PAKLIAMENT 9

which, with the advent of the great civil war, was then
■ commenced.

One of the many good results of the overthrow
•of the Star Chamber in February 1641 was that the
censorship of the press, though not abolished, was
suspended or disorganised for some time. The old
restrictions, which had been tightened under the guid-
ance of Archbishop Laud, were ignored; and during
two or three years there was practically no control over
authors and printers.^ Books of all sorts were freely
published, and with them news-sheets in abundance,
the Long Parliament itself setting an example by
ordering to be issued an authentic account of the
business done by it and of the principal events offi-
cially reported to its members from various parts
■of the country. ' The Diurnal Occurrences, or Daily
Proceedings of both Houses in this great and happy

' ' From the begmning of the Long Parliament,' says Professor
Masson, ' there had been a relaxation, or rather a total breakdown, of
the former laws for the regulation of the press. In the newly found
liberty of the nation to think and to speak, all bonds of censorship were
burst, and books of all kinds, but especially pamplilets on the current ques-
tions, were sent forth by their owners very much at their own discretion.
The proportion of those that went through the legal ceremonial of being

. authorised by an appointed licencer, and registered in the Stationers'
books by the Company's clerk under further order from one of the Com-
pany's wardens, must, I should say, have been quite inconsiderable in
comparison with the number that flew about printed almost anywhere
and anyhow. . . . The Parliament tried to institute a new army of cen-

. sorship in the form of Committees for Printing, and licencers appointed
by these Committees. Such licencers were either members of Parliament

. selected for the duty, or parliamentary officials, or persons out of doors in
whom Parliament could trust. Tlirough 1641 and 1642 I find the follow-
ing persons, among others, licensing books : John Pym, Sir Edward
Deering, the elder Sir Henry Vane, Mr. (Century) White, and a Dr.
Wykes ; but I find evidence that the Parliamentary Committee of Printing
had really, in a great measure, to leave the licensing of books to the
Warden of the Stationers' Company. ... Censorship and regulation
had ' (in 1643) ' become an absolute farce.' — Life of Milton, vol. iii. pp.

: 261 -268.

1 0 OUR EAELIEST NEWSPAPERS ch. r-

Parliament from the 3rd of November, 1640, to the 3rd
of November, 1641,' was a stout volume; but it was-
followed by weekly issues of 'Diurnal Occurrences,'
each generally containing eight closely-printed pages
in small quarto, and any one was free to reproduce the-
matter thus supplied by authority, with such other-
ibems of news as he chose, provided he did not grossly
abuse the liberty allowed to him.

Several weekly papers were accordingly started in
1641 and the following years, among them being one-
by the indefatigable Butter, with this pretentious title
to its first number : ' The Passages in Parliament, from
the 3rd of January to the 10th, more fully and exactly-
taken than the ordinary one hath been, as you will find
upon comparing.' ' And,' it was added, as an earnest
of Butter's intention to avoid such confusion as had
arisen from the appearance of his ' Weekly News ' under-
various headings, 'although the week past doth yield
many remarkable passages, as hath been any week
before, yet you shall expect no more expression either
now or hereafter in the title than " The Passages in^
Parliament," &c.' A more important paper was ' The-
Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer,' ' sent abroad to pre-
vent misinformation,' and issued by authority of the-
Long Parliament in opposition to King Charles, whose
claim to sovereignty had not yet been openly denied,,
which first appeared in July 1642 ; and there were other
' Intelligencers,' and other ' Passages,' and other ' Diur-
nals.' All these were bald and often clumsily written,
chronicles, but, having so much of importance to re-
cord concerning the progress of the civil war, they were-
far in advance of the earlier newspapers, and they in their-
turn were soon improved upon. A great advance in'
journalism appeared in the ' Mercuries ' which began ini

1641-1643. THE 'DIURNALS' AND TPDE 'MERCURIES' 11

1643.^ About the facts of the civil war these 'Mer-
curies ' are not safe informants, but of its humours
they aflFord amusing and instructive illustration.

The first of the English ' Mercuries ' was ' Mercurius
Aulicus,' commenced in January 1643 as a counterblast
to ' The Kingdom's Intelligencer,' edited for some time
by John Birkenhead, and published regularly every
week for about three years, after which it appeared at
uncertain intervals. ' The world hath long enough
been abused with falsehoods,' we are told in the open-
ing paragraph of the first number, 'and there's a
weekly cheat put out to nourish the abuse amongst the
people, and make them pay for their seducement. And
that the world may see that the court is neither so
barren of intelligence as it is conceived, nor the affairs
thereof in so unprosperous a condition as these pam-
phlets make them out, it is thought fit to let them truly
understand the estate of things, that so they may no
longer pretend ignorance or be deceived with untruths.'

' Mercurius Aulicus,' issued from Oxford, • where
Charles I. had established himself after the battle
of Edgehill, was the special champion of the Royal-
ist cause, which it advocated, as Anthony a Wood
said, 'with a great deal of wit and buffoonery.'

' ' Mercury ' was a favourite name both for old newspapers and for
those who distributed them. A Mercure Frangais, started in Paris in
1613, lived on till 1647. There were also a Mercure Suisse and a Genevan
Mercii/re d'Etat. Some of the numbers of Butter's Weekly News were
said to be ' printed for Mercurius Britannicus,' and one of Butter's other
publications, issued in 1636, was described as The Principal Passages of
Germany, Italy, France, and other Places, all faithfully taken out of.
good originals by an English Mercttry. Towards the close of James I.'s
reign, says an old writer (Harleian MSS., British Museum, cod. 5,910),
' if I mistake not, began the use of Mercury women, and they it was who
dispersed them to the hawkers. These mercuries and hawkers, their
business at first was to disperse proclamations, orders of council, acts of
parliament, &c.' The mercury women are sometimes referred to in old
plays.

12 OUK EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS ch. i.

Birkenhead, a clever young man of about eight-and-
twenty, when he began it, had at one time been secre-
tary to Archbishop Laud, and commended himself to
ting and courtiers by talents which even his friendly
biographer could not applaud. ' The truth is,' we are
told, 'had he not been too much given to bantering,
which is now taken up by vain and idle people, he
might have passed for a good wit ; and, had he also
expressed himself grateful and respectful to those that
had been his benefactors in the time of his necessity,
which he did not, but rather slighted them, showing
thereby the baseness of his spirit, he might have passed
for a friend and a loving companion.' ^ He had a
worthier colleague and successor in the production of
' Mercurius AuUcus ' in Peter Heylin, who, however,
was more successful as a writer of serious books than
as a journalist. In the weekly newspaper Birkenhead
' pleased the generahty of his readers with bis wag-
geries and buffooneries far more than Heylin.' ^

The coarse smartness and violent partisanship of
' Mercurius Aulicus ' made it famous, and its success
led to the appearance of many rivals, both Royalist and
Parliamentarian. Of these the foremost in time, and
for a while in influence, was ' Mercurius Britannicus,
Communicating the Affairs of Great Britain for the
Better Information of the People,' which was started in
London in August 1643. Its conductor was March-
mont Nedham, then only three-and-twenty, who had
been an usher in the Merchant Taylors' School, and
was a lawyer's clerk in Gray's Inn when, according to
Anthony a Wood, ' siding with the rout and scum ot
the people, he made them weekly sport by railing at all
that is noble in his intelligence, called " Mercurius

' Wood, Athenm Oxonienses, vol. iii. p. 1203.
= Ibid. p. 556.

1643. JOHN BIRKENHEAD AND MAECHMONT NEDHAM IS^

Britannicus," wiierein his endeavours were to sacrifice
the fame of some lord or person of quality — nay, of the
king himself — to the beast with many heads.' Con-
cerning his ' scurrilous pamphlets ' we are told that
' flying every week into all parts of the nation, 'tis in-
credible what influence they had upon numbers of
unconsidering people, who have a strange presumption
that all must needs be true that is in print. This was
the Goliath of the Philistines, the great champion of the
late usurper, whose pen he was — in comparison with
the others, like a weaver's beam.' ^ Nedham proved
himself a match for Birkenhead, and outlived him as a
journalist. He was one of the few men of that day who'
made a regular trade of newspaper writing, and, un-
fortunately for his reputation — though not for his
personal advantage — he was an unblushing time-
server.^

It would have been surprising if the liberty accorded
to newspaper writers by the overthrow of the Star
Chamber had not degenerated into licence among the
unscrupulous, or been put to bad uses by corrupt hands ;
and we find it was so. ' Sir John Gell, of Derbyshire,'
we read in Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson's memoir of her hus-
band, 'kept the diurnal makers in pension, so that

' Wood, Athenm Oxonienses, vol. iii. p. 1180.

' Befoi-e the end of 1644, there were at least a score of weekly papers
in circulation besides those named above. Among the number were
John Taylor's Mercurius Aquaticus, or the Water Poet's answer to all
that liath or shall be writ hy Mercurius Britannicus, as Boyalist as
Mercurius Aulicus was ; Mercurius Anglicus, or a Post from the North ;
The Military Scribe, which undertook to give such news as the Royalists
cared to publish ; and The Spy, ' communicating intelligence from Oxford
in the interests of the Parliamentarians. So keen was the newspaper
war that when Bruno Ryves, late chaplain to the king, produced his
Mercwiius Rusticus, or the Country's Complaint, recoimUng tlie Sad
Events of this Lamentable War, Qeorge Wither, the Republican poet,
opposed to it another Mercurius Busticus, with this motto, 'By your
•leave, gentlemen, when seriousness takes not effect, perhaps trifling may.'

14 OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS ch. i.

whatever was done in the neighbouring counties against
the enemy was attributed to him ; and thus he hath in-
directly purchased himself a name in story which he
never merited. Mr. Hutchinson, on the other side, that
did well for virtue's sake, and not for the vainglory of
it, never would give anything to buy the flatteries of
those scribblers, and when one of them once, when he
was in town, made mention of something done at Not-
tingham with falsehood, and had given Gell the glory of
an action in which he was not concerned, Mr. Hutchin-
son rebuked him for it ; whereupon the man begged his
pardon, and told him he would write us much for him
the next week. But Mr. Hutchinson told him he
scorned his mercenary pen, and warned him not to be
in any of his concernments ; whereupon the fellow was
awed, and he had no more abuse of that kind.' ^

The wielders of mercenary pens were not always so
easily awed, and worse oflfence was caused by the scurri-
lous and malicious language with which the journalists
of rival parties assailed the opposite camps than by the
garbled reports in which they overrated or underrated
the exploits of the soldiers or politicians of their
own sides in the civil war. In the newswriters' abuse
of their privileges, as well as in many of the bulkier
publications issued in those years, there was some ex-
cuse, if no justification, for the ordinance of the Long
Parliament, dated June 14, 1643, 'for the regulating
of printing, and for suppressing the great late abuses
and frequent disorders in printing many false, scanda-
lous, seditious, libellous, and unlicensed pamphlets, to
the great defamation of religion and government.' ^

1 Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson.

^ A previous ordinance of March 0, 1643, had empowered the Com-
mittee for Examinations to cause houses in which it was suspected that
presses were ' kept and employed in the printing of scandalous, lying
pamphlets,' to be searched, to destroy any obnoxious literature they found

1644. MILTON ON PEESS CENSOESHIP 15

This order, which remained in force, with frequent
radditions, for half a century, caused grievous annoyance
:and much hindrance to the healthy progress of news-
paper enterprise ; but it was as ineffectual and as un-
profitable as Milton declared that it would be and must
be in his ' Areopagitica,' the eloquent ' speech for the
liberty of unlicensed printing, to the parhament of
England,' which was boldly printed, without ■ any • li-
•cencer's imprimatur, in 1644. MUton scornfully and
plaintively discoursed on the question of book-licensing
in general, and insisted forcibly on the sacred duty of
allowing complete freedom to every sort of hterature
and to every channel for the utterance of unfettered
opinion, without much notice of the restraints it was
sought to impose on newspapers ; but, a year after the
■ordinance had been issued, he fairly taunted the Long
Parliament on its failure to suppress even such a scur-
rilous publication as ' Mercurius Aulicus.' ' Do we not
-see, not once or oftener, but weekly,' he exclaimed,
' that continued court-libel against the parliament and
■city printed, as the wet sheets can witness, and dis-
persed among us, for all that licensing can do ? Yet
this is the prime service, a man would think, wherein
this order should give proof of itself. " If it were ex-
ecuted," you'll say. l^ut certain, if execution be remiss
■or blindfold now, and in this particular, what will it be
hereafter, and in other books ? ' ^

"there, and also the presses put to such evil uses, and to severely punish
the printers and vendors. The later and more stringent order provided
that ' no book, pamphlet, paper, nor part of any such book, pamphlet, or
paper, shall from henceforth be printed, bound, stitched, or put to sale
by any person or persons -whatsoever, unless the same be first approved
of and licensed under the hands of such person or persons as both or either
of the Houses of Parliament shall appoint for the licensing of the same,
and entered in the register book of the Company of Stationers, according
to ancient custom.'

^ Areopagitica (Arber's edition), p. 53.

16 OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS ch. i.-

In SO far as the Long Parliament's licensing ordi-
nance had any result at all on newspapers, it seems
only to have increased the number and the virulence
of the illicit but freely circulated Royalist prints. Seve-
ral new papers were started in 1644 and the following
years, one of special note, though short-lived, being
' Mercurius Pragmaticus.'

After having conducted 'Mercurius Britannicus' for
nearly four years in the interests of the Parliamentary
party, Marchmont Nedham got into trouble with the-
authorities, and went over to the side of Charles I.
' In 1647,' says his mocking biographer, ' he left the
blessed cause, and, obtaining the favour of a known
Royalist to introduce him into his majesty's presence-
at Hampton Court, he then and there knelt before him
and desired forgiveness for what he had MTitten against
him and his cause ; which being readily granted, he
kissed his majesty's hand, and soon after wrote " Mer-
curius Pragmaticus," which, being very witty, satu'ical
against the Presbyterians, and full of loyalty, made him
known to and admired by the bravadoes and wits of
those times.' ^ Nedham's new paper was a very clever
and unscrupulous advocate and exponent of Royalist
views, the prose of each number being prefaced by some
smart verses, of which these, in the number for October
6, 1647, may serve as a specimen : —

A Scot and Jesuit, joined in hand,

First taught the world to say-
That subjects ought to have command

And princes to obey.

Then both agreed to have no king :

The Scotchman, he cries further,
No bishop — 'tis a goodly thing

States to reform by murther.

' 'Wood, Athena: Oxonienses, vol. iii. p. 1180.

1647. NEDHAM AS A ROYALIST 17

Then th' Independent, meek and sly,

Most lowly lies at lurch,
And so, to put poor Jocky by,

Resolves to have no Church.

The king dethroned, the subjects bleed.

The Church hath no abode :
Let us conclude they're all agreed

That here there is no God.

Language like that could hardly be tolerated. On
November 27, 1647, the House of Commons appointed
a committee ' to find out the authors of " Mercurius
Pragmaticus " and " Mercurius Melancholicus " ' — an-
other seditious newspaper — ' to punish them and the
^printers and sellers of them, and to seize the impressions
of them.' 1

Nedham was .cot caught, nor was his journal
suppressed, but the attempt to reach him was part of
a vigorous effort to revive and enforce the licensing
ordinance of 1643. On September 20 Sir Thomas
Fairfax, writing to the Speaker of the House of Lords,
enclosed ' some printed pamplilets not only very
scandalous and abusive to this army in particular, but
indeed to the whole kingdom in general,' and urged
' that these and all of the like nature be suppressed for
the future.' The appeal was promptly responded to.
On September 30 both Houses of Parliament agreed to
another ordinance ' for the better regulation of print-
ing,' imposing heavy penalties on ' what person soever
shall make, write, print, publish, sell, or utter any
book, pamphlet, treatise, ballad, Hbel, or sheet of news
whatsoever, or cause so to be done, except the same be
licensed by both or either House of Parliament, or by
such persons as shall be thereunto authorised by one
or both Houses of Parliament, with the name of the

' Whitelooke, Memorials, vol. ii. p. 281.
VOL. I. C

18 OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS ch. i.

author, printer, and licencer thereunto prefixed.' And
in order that this rule might be carried out, if possible,
one Gilbert Mabbott, who had already ' approved him-
self faithful in the service of licensing and likewise in
the service of the houses and the army,' was formally
appointed to the office of licencer.

The ordinance of 1647 appears to have had small
result. Nedham, by shifting his own places of residence
and often changing his printers, contrived to bring out
his ' Mercurius Pragmaticus ' every week from Septem-
ber 1647 till January 1649, and, after three months'
interruption, he started another series in April 1649,
which, however, was soon discontinued. Other sedi-
tious prints also appeared from time to time, and, after
vainly endeavouring through a year and a half to per-
form his duties as censor, Mabbott abandoned it in
disgust, his resignation being accepted by parliament
in May 1649. Mabbott's statement of his reasons for
retiring are interesting. The first, showing how utterly
useless and mischievous was his office, was that ' many
thousands of scandalous and malignant pamphlets have
been published with his name thereunto as if he had
licensed the same, though he never saw them, on pur-
pose, as he conceives, to prejudice him in his reputation
amongst the honest party of this nation.' The other
reasons show that he was too much of Milton's way of
thinking, and too honest and intelligent a man, to be
a good press censor. ' That employment, he conceives,
is unjust and illegal as to the ends of its first institu-
tion, viz. to stop the press from publishing anything
that might discover the corruption of church and state
in the time of popery, episcopacy, and tyranny, the
better to keep the people in ignorance and carry on
their popish, factious, and tyrannical designs for the
enslaving and destruction both of the bodies and souls

1643-1649. CENSORSHIP UNDER THE PARLIAMENT 19

of all the free people of this nation. Licensing^ is as
great a monopoly as ever was in this nation, in that all
men's judgments, reasons, &c. are bound up in the
licencer's as to licensing : for if the author of any sheet,
book, or treatise write not to please the fancy and come
within the compass of the licencer's judgment, then he
is not to receive any stamp of authority for publishing
thereof.' ^

Mabbott's duties as Hcencer of books and newspapers
in general appear to have included such special respon-
sibility for the contents of the semi-official journals
' which were published at this time as made him practi-
cally their editor. As early as 1642 the ' True Diurnal
of Parliamentary Intelligence ' had had its weekly
information vouched for by the signature of ' Jo.
Browne, Cler. Parliamentor.,' and though neither this
nor the ' Perfect Diurnal' that succeeded it in 1643 was
altogether in the nature of a government gazette, the
paper specially favoured by parliament was of course
expected to furnish just such information as the
authorities wished to have communicated to the public.
When General Fairfax proposed the appointment of
Mabbott as censor in 1647 he suggested, ' in order that
the kingdom's expectation may be satisfied in relation
to intelligence tUl a firm peace be settled, considering
the mischiefs that will happen by the poisonous writings
of evil men sent abroad daily to abuse and deceive the
people, that, if the house shall see fit, some two or
three sheets shall come forth weekly, which may be
licensed and have some stamp of authority with them ; '
and fi-om this date more than before, we may infer, the
' Perfect Diurnal,' under Mabbott's guidance, was the
authentic organ of the parliament and the army. It
was so yet more after the execution of Charles I. in

' Fei-fect Dmmal, May 21-28, 1649.

0 2

20 OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS oh. i.

January 1649 and during the eleven years of the
Commonwealth.

Through nearly all those years the versatile March-
mont Nedham was, strange to say, the official journalist.
Having abandoned the Parliamentary party or been
abandoned by it, and haAdng defied it by the clandestine
production of his ' Mercurius Pragmaticus ' from Sep-
tember 1647 until Charles I.'s death, he did not long
remain faithful to his sovereign's son. The second
series of ' Mercurius Pragmaticus,' begun on April 24,
1649, was, it is true, stated on the title to be ' for King
Charles II., ' but Nedham's loyalty was soon frightened
out of him. ' Being narrowly sought after,' says his
biographer, ' he left London, and for a time skuEced at
Minster Lovel, near Binford in Oxfordshire, in the
house of Dr. Peter Heylin. At length, he being found
out, imprisoned in Newgate, and brought into danger
of his life, Lenthall, the Speaker of the House of Com-
mons, who knew him and his relations well, and John
Bradshaw, President of the High Court of Justice,
treated him fairly, and not only got his pardon, but,
with promise of rewards and places, persuaded him to
change his style once more.' ^

The changed style, changed in matter, not in
manner, appeared in a new paper, of which the first
number was published on Thursday, June 13, 1650,
with this title, ' Mercurius Politicus, comprising the
Sum of all Intelligence, with the Affairs and Designs
now on foot in the Nations of England, Ireland, and
Scotland in defence of the Commonwealth and for
the Information of the People.' ' Why should not the
Commonwealth have a fool as well as the king had ? '
Nedham frankly asked in his opening article. ' 'Tis
a point of state, and if the old court humours should

' Wood, Athenae Oxmnenses, vol. iii. p. H80.

1660-1652. NEDHAM AS A COMMONWEALTH-MaN 21

return in this new form, 'twere the ready road to pre-
ferment and a lady's chamber. But you'll say I am
out of fashion because I make neither rhymes nor faces
for fiddler's pay like the royal " Mercurius," yet you shall
know I have authority enough to create a fashion of
my own and make all the world to follow my humour.'
We must conclude either that the Council of State,
which managed the Commonwealth while Cromwell
was fighting its battles in Ireland and Scotland, was
very scantily supplied with men competent to conduct
its official journal, or that Nedham had great influence
at the republican court, when we find this shameless
turncoat advanced to the post. He occupied it with
no little ability, if without much credit, however, for
nearly ten years. On May 24, 1650, besides a sum of
501. granted him for arrears, an allowance of lOOZ. a
year was made to him ' for service done to the Com-
monwealth,' ^ and this, equal to about 350/. in modern
value, was evidently the stipend attached to his
duties as editor of ' Mercurius Politicus ' and occasional
writer of other pamphlets on behalf of the government.
He may have received other payments, or a share of
the profits from the printer and publisher, but about
this there is no information.

During some time, a year or more, Nedham had
assistance in his work firom a famous man of letters.
From January 1651 till January 1652 John Milton, in
■connection with his emplojnnent as one of the secretaries
to the Council of State, acted as censor of the press
under the Commonwealth, and though there is no proof
that the author of ' Areopagitica ' himself wrote much
or anything for ' Mercurius Politicus,' there are num-
berless and unmistakable marks of his influence on
the tone of its articles and the construction of its

^ MasBon, Life of Milton, vol. iv. p. 226.

22 OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS oh. i.

sentences at this period. Nedham's rollicking style,
flippant and abusive, is not abandoned, but subdued,
and its rough humour is strangely interspersed with
touches of Miltonic grandeur. Along with the gossip-
ing reports of news and rambling comments upon it,
moreover, we find, in the year of Milton's censorship, ,
grave and thoughtful articles in ' Mercurius Politicus,'
discussing political methods and propounding theories
of government in ways that are altogether different
from anything to be met with in this or other old
newspapers before, and for some time after, the years
1651 and 1652. It is certain, at any rate, that by
virtue of their several offices Milton had just then to
be in frequent communication with Nedham, and was
in a position to control if not to dictate to him.^

There is nothing to show that Milton, to whom the
duties of press censor and book licencer must have been
irksome, and on principle offensive, was more tyrannical
than it was necessary for him to be during his term of
office. If he put a curb on Nedham's scurrilous pen,
he seems to have meddled little, perhaps because he
could not meddle effectually, with the rival and
seditious papers that were still plentiful, though not so
numerous as in the times of civil war.

The censorship was more severe after he retired
from it. On December 28, 1652, the House of
Commons ordered ' that it be referred to the Council of
State to take care for suppressing the weekly pamphlets

' 'One can imagine through those months,' says Mr. Masson, "Ned-
ham's weekly visits to the invalid Milton in his Whitehall apartments,
bringing the proofs of each forthcoming number of Mercurius with him,
and their consultations over the articles, and MUton'a occasional criticisms
and perhaps suggestions and improvements.' — Life of Milton, vol. iv. p.
326. In 1656 a series of articles, which had appeared in 1651 in Mer-
curius Politicus, was reprinted anonymously in a volume entitled The
Excellency of a Free State, or the Bight Goihstitution of a Commonwealth
which might easily pass for a clumsy and inferior work by Milton.

1651-1660. MILTON AND OTHER PRESS CENSORS 23

or any other books that go out to the dishonour of the
Parliament and prejudice of the Commonwealth, and
also to examine the authors, printers, and publishers of
the books called " Mercurius Britannicus " ' — now an
anti-Republican paper — ' and '' The Scout " ' — another
seditious journal — ' or any other books of that nature,
and that they have power to imprison the offenders,
and to inflict such other punishment on them as they
shall think fit ; and Mr. Scott ' — apparently the Major
Thomas Scott who was too staunch a Republican for
Cromwell — ' is to take especial care hereof.' ^ Harsher,
and probably less of a dead letter, was an order of
September 5, 1655, on the lord protector's authority,
that ' no person whatever do presume to publish in
print any matter of pubhc news or intelligence without
leave of the secretary of state.' ^

During the ensuing three years, at any rate, the
press censorship, taken in hand by Secretary Thurloe
himself, was a reality, and matters were hardly mended
in the time between Oliver Cromwell's death and
Charles II. 's instalment as king, when they were to be
anything but mended. Under the protectorate there
appear to have been only two authorised newspapers,
' Mercurius Politicus ' and ' The Public Intelligencer,'
This latter, ' communicating the chief occurrences
and proceedings within the dominions of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, together with an account of
affairs from several parts of Europe,' according to the
title-page, had been started in the autumn of 1655, and
was, indeed, practically a Monday edition of ' Mercurius
Politicus,' the publishing day of which was Thursday.
Both papers were edited by Nedham, and printed by
Thomas Newcombe, ' in Thames Street, over against

' Journals of the Mouse of Commons, vol. vii. p. 236,
' Masson, Life of Milton, vol. v. p. 61.

24 OUR EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS of. i.

Baynard's Castle,' whose name appears in the books of
the Stationers' Company as the registered proprietor,
under licence from Secretary Thurloe.

Time-serving and versatile as he was, Nedham was
unable to retain his post after the break-up of the
Commonwealth, and he fell iuto some disgrace with the
dominant faction in 1659. On May 13 he was sus-
pended by order of the House of Commons from the
management of ' The Public Intelligencer,' though not
apparently of ' Mercurius Politicus.' On August 15,
however, the House resolved ' that Marchmont Nedham,
gentleman, be and is hereby restored to be writer of
" The Public Intelligencer " as formerly.' ^ He still had .
friends in power, perhaps his old patron. Speaker
Lenthall, being chief of them, and when, falling in with
the change in politics, the two otficial papers were re-
shaped in January 1660 with slightly altered titles —
' Mercurius Publicus ' in the one case, and ' The Parlia-
mentary Intelligencer ' in the other — both avowedly
' published by order of the Council of State,' he retained
the editorship of both for three months.^

But the crisis came for him, and he was finally
dismissed in April 1660, while the Convention Parlia-
ment was being elected. In the number of ' The
Parliamentary Intelligencer ' for April 1 6 ' the reader
is desired to take notice that — whereas Marchmont
Nedham is, by order of the Council of State, discharged
from writing or publishing any public intelligence —
by order of the said Council, Giles Dury and Henry

^ Juimfials of the House of Commons, vol. vii. p. 758.

'' Other newspapers were allowed to appear, or could not be prevented
from appearing, at this time. One was An Exact Account of the Daily
Proceedings in Parliament, mth Occurrences from Foreign Parts, started in
December 1658 ; another, A Particular Advice from the Office of Intelli-
gence near the Old Ejxhatige, started in "June 1659, and the title of
wliich was soon altered to Occurrences from Foreign Parts.

1659-1660. THE END OF NEDHAM'S CAEEER 25

Muddiman are authorised hencefortli to write and
publish the said intelligence, the one upon the Thursday
and the other upon the Monday, which they do intend
to set out under the titles of " The Parliamentary In-
telligencer " and " Mercurius Pubhcus." '

Not waiting for the return of Charles II., whom he
had known and flattered long before, while he was
producing ' Mercurius Pragmaticus,' but whom he had
persistently vilified during ten years in ' Mercurius
Politicus,' Nedham took shelter for a time in Holland,
whither he was pursued, not by armed men but by
the mockery of his RoyaHst contemporaries. A printed
squib, ' An Hue and Cry after Mercurius PoUticus,'
appeared on May 10, describing his antecedents and
personal appearance in such terms as these : —

But if at Amsterdam you meet

With one that's purblind in the street.

Hawk-nosed, turn up his hair
And in his ears two holes you'll find,
And, if they are not pawned, behind

Two rings are hanging there.
His visage meagre is, and long,
His body slender, &c.

He was in England again in October 1660, however,
having, we are told, ' for money given to an hungry
courtier, obtained pardon under the great seal, which
was his defence oftentimes against several attempts
to hale him before a justice, and so to prison for
treason.' His career as a journalist was over ; but,
having studied medicine as well as law in his youth,
' he exercised the faculty of physic to his dying day,
which was a considerable benefit to him.' He died in
1674, four years after Milton, his senior by twelve
years, and his sometime associate in Commonwealth
journalism. Even his spiteful biographer and political
■opponent was constrained to admit that ' he was a

26 OUE EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS ch. i.

person endowed with quick natural parts, was a good
humanitarian, poet, and born droll, and, had he been
constant to his cavaliering principles, he would have
been beloved by and admired of all ; but, being
.mercenary and valuing money and sordid interest,
rather than conscience, friendship, or love to his prince,
he was much hated by the Koyal party to his last,,
and many cannot yet endure to have him spoken of.' ^

In his days, and with his help, faulty as it was,
journalism had made important progress, and acquired
far more dignity and influence than were allowed to it
in the generation following.

' Wood, Athenx Oxonienses, vol. iii. p. 1180.

27

CHAPTER II.

UNDER THE LICENSING ACT.
1660—1695.

When the art of printing began in Europe all literature
was either in the hands of the clergy or under the
Church's immediate management, and during at least
a century none but outrageous lawbreakers thought of
disputing or meddling with the ecclesiastical preroga-
tive. In England, the authority of popes and cardinals
being repudiated by Henry VIII., he claimed like power
for himself and his ministers, and the royal right to
absolute control over the press was taken for granted,
or angrily insisted upon as often as it was questioned
or controverted, down to the time when the Common-
wealth usurped the functions of the Crown. An ordi-
nance of the Star Chamber in 1585, denouncing the
' enormities and abuses of disorderly persons possessing
the art of printing and selling books,' which had been
growing during half a century, limited the number of
master printers to twenty, besides the establishments
allowed to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge,
placed these and everything issued from their presses
under stringent supervision, and made penal all other
printing or publishing. Nothing was to be put to
press without previous licence of the archbishop of
Canterbury or the bishop of London, except what
was ordered of the queen's printer, or legal matter

28 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ii.

appointed by the cHef justices, and inquisitorial powers
■over printers and booksellers were assigned to tbe
Stationers' Company. This ordinance prevailed, or
was violated at peril, until 1637, when the harsher
ordinance of the Star Chamber already referred to was
published; and before and after that date there was
cruel persecution of many producers of books, with
great hindrance to the producers of newspapers,
though these latter rarely brought on themselves such
sufferings as were heroically borne by Prynne, Bast-
wick, Burton, Lilburn and others. The fall of the Star
Chamber in 1641, as we have seen, liberated the press
to some extent, and the milder tyranny of the Long
Parhament and the Commonwealth leaders was not
searching or capable enough to prevent a very con-
siderable growth of newspaper enterprise whUe
Charles J. was being held at bay and Charles II. was
kept out of his kingdom. With the Restoration,
however, press censorship was restored, and, for some
time and to some extent, it was more disastrous in its
effects, on newspapers at any rate, than it had been
before the interregnum began.

Charles II. was on the throne nearly two years
before he and his ministers were able to get their way.
A bill for the regulation of printing, as adopted by the
House of Lords, was rejected by the Commons in July
16fil. But the Licensing Act passed on May 19, 1662,
renewed most of the obnoxious provisions of the Star
Chamber ordinances of 1585 and 1637. On the plea
that ' by the general licentiousness of the late times
many evil-disposed persons had been encouraged to
print and sell heretical and seditious books,' it again
limited the number of master printers to twenty, all of
whom were to be in London, except one in York and
those employed by the crown and the universities ; it

1660. CHARLES H.'S UCENCEES 29-

assigned the licensing of all historical works and poli-
tical writings to the secretary of state, of all legal
works to the lord chancellor and the judges, and of all
works on religion, philosophy, and physics to the arch-
bishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London ; and
it threw on these ecclesiastics the task of seeing that
the Stationers' Company and other responsible bodies
did their duty, and that all unlicensed printers and
writers of unlicensed books and pamphlets were severely
punished. This act, frequently renewed, was in force till
1679, when worse tyranny than it sanctioned began to
be carried on without parliamentary authority. Re-
vived in 1685, it continued in operation tUl 1695. Of
its disastrous effects during more than thirty years
some evidence may now be given.

The spirit that prompted it began to work before
the Act itself was passed. There was less immediate
change than might have been expected, however, lq the
style of the authorised newspapers. Marchmont Ned-
ham, having been dismissed in April 1660, both ' The
Parliamentary Intelligencer ' and ' Mercurius Publicus '
were continued pretty much as heretofore till the end
of the year by Henry Muddiman and Giles Dury, of
whom we know very little, and who were probably
employed merely as stopgaps.^ Nedham's real successor
was his old rival of the early period of the civil wars,
John Birkenhead ; and Birkenhead soon gave place to
a sterner censor.

Birkenhead had had many experiences since the
time when he started ' Mercurius Aulicus.' For the
skUl and scurrility shown by him in his conduct of that
court organ Charles I. had, somewhat inconsequen-
tially, got hkn appointed to the chair of moral philo-

^ Pepys said of Muddiman that lie was ' a good scholar and an arch
rogue.'

ly'

30 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ii.

sophy at Oxford university; but in 1648 lie was
deprived by the Presbyterian visitors both of this post
and of his All Souls fellowship, and after that, we are
told, ' he retired to London, suffered several imprison-
ments for his majesty's cause, and lived by his wits at
helping young gentlemen at dead lifts in making poems,
songs, and epistles on and to their respective mistresses,
as also in translating and writing several little things, and
other petty employments.' ^ Better fortune and more
sedate occupation came to him with the Restoration.
In November 1660 he was appointed one of the licen-
cers under the Clarendon ministry, apparently with
particular oversight of the authorised newspapers, into
which, however, he was either not allowed or not in-
clined to import any of the 'wit and buffoonery' in
which he had indulged seventeen years before.^

On the first Monday in January 1661 ' The Par-
liamentary Intelligencer ' came out with an altered title,
as ' The Kingdom's Intelligencer of the Affairs now in
agitation in England, Scotland, and Ireland, together
with Foreign Intelligence ; to prevent False News ;
published by authority;' and the first paragraph an-
nounced that ' the Parliamentary Intelligencer (as he
has good reason) hath changed his name, the par-
liament itself (from whom he borrowed that compila-
tion) being now dissolved, though 'tis not in the
power of malice or folly to misname that parliament
since his majesty hath pleased with his own sacred lips
to call it the healing and the blessed parliament.' It
was followed on Thursday by ' Mercurius Publicus,' also
' to prevent false news,' and ' published by authority,'
with a fresh No. 1. Each paper extended to sixteen

' Wood, Athenx Oxonienses, vol. iii. p. 1203.

' Birkenhead is described by Aubrey as a man ' of middling stature,
great goggle eyes, and not of a sweet aspect.'

1661. 'THE KINGDOM'S INTELLIGENCER' 31

small quarto pages, generally in large print, and —
portions of the matter in each being repeated in its
successor, so that buyers of only one series might have
as much weekly information as was thought good for
them — furnished very little news, either true or false.
The first number of ' The Kingdom's Intelligencer,' for
instance, contained a few scraps of foreign and domestic
gossip, a bald catalogue of the acts passed by the Con-
vention Parliament just dissolved, and the text or sub-
stance of Sir Harbottle Grimston's address, as Speaker
of the House, dissolving it on behalf of King Charles.
There were also in the number two trade advertisements,
this novelty in journalism having been introduced a
few years before in the Commonwealth newspapers.^

Meagre as were the papers allowed to appear during
the first three years of Charles II.'s reign, they were
larger and fuller than the authorities desired, and to
Birkenhead a stricter successor in the control of them
was found. Birkenhead seems to have retained his office
while the Licensing Act was being forced through par-
liament, and for fifteen months after. But he was busy
and prospering in other ways. Through royal favour
he was made Doctor of Civil Law by Oxford university
in April 1661, and member of parliament for "Wilton
in the following May. He was knighted in November

1662, and in 1663 he was appointed Master of Requests,
with a good salary and chance of pickings without limit. ^

' One of the two advertisements is curious enough to be worth quot-
ing : ' Sir Kenelm Digby's sympathetica! powder, prepared by Promethian
fire, curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a remedy,
as also the toothache infallibly, is to be had at Mr. Samuel Speed's,
at the Printing-press in St. Paul's Churchyard.' This earlier one had
appeared in the Mercurius Politicm of September 30, 1658 : ' That ex-
cellent and by aU physicians approved China drink, called by the Chineans
tcha, by other nations " tay " alias " tee," is sold at the Sultaness' Head
CoflFee-house in Sweeting's Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London.'

' Wood, Athenx Oxormmes, vol. iii. p. 1206.

32 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ii.

Therefore he made way in the licensing office for Roger
L'Estrange.

This L'Estrange, born in 1616, had been a zealous
fighter and schemer for Charles I., had been caught and
sentenced to death as a spy and conspu'ator against the
Parliament in 1644, but had escaped with four years'
imprisonment in Newgate, after which he had passed a
restless life, partly on the continent, partly in England,
until the Restoration brought him into favour. One
of many pamphlets written by him in Commonwealth
times was a fierce attack on Milton, entitled ' No Bhnd
Guides;' another was ' Treason arraigned in answer to
Plain Speech,' the ' plain speech ' there denounced
having, as he said, been at first regarded by him as
' either Nedham's or Milton's, a couple of curs of the
same pack.'-^ In June 1663, evidently with a view to
bringing himself into notice, he published another
pamphlet, ' Considerations and Proposals in order to
the Regulation of the Press, together with divers In-
stances of Treasonous and Seditious Pamphlets, proving
the Necessity thereof In this treatise L'Estrange com-
plained that the Licensing Act, which had been passed a
year before, was by no means so stringently enforced as
it might be. ' That spirit of hypocrisy, scandal, malice,
error, and illusion that actuated the late rebellion,' he
said, was ' reigning still, and working not only by the
same means, but in very many of the same persons and
to the same ends ; ' and there was no hope of its being
repressed unless the severest measures were adopted,
not only towards printers and authors, but also towards
' the letter-founders, and the smiths and joiners that
work upon presses, with the stitchers, binders, stationers,
hawkers, mercury women, pedlars, ballad-singers, posts,
carriers, hackney coachmen, boatmen, and mariners.'

' Masson, Life of Milton, vol. vi. p. 326.

1663. L'ESTEANGE'S NEWSPAPER MONOPOLY 33

Besides such ' ordinary penalties ' for the issuing of
treasonable or seditious literature as ' death, mutilation,
imprisonment, , banishment, corporal pains, disgrace,
pecuniary mulcts,' he thought that the humbler
offenders — the mercury women, hawkers, and so forth
— ought to be ' condemned to wear some visible badge
or mark of ignominy, as a halter instead of a hatband,
one stocking blue and another red, a blue bonnet with
a T or S upon it.' The upshot of aU the complaining
and proposing was that competent and duly-paid press
licencers ought to be appoiuted, and that informers
should be well bribed to briag offenders to justice.

Koger L'Estrange's pamphlet promptly had the
result that he doubtless chiefly desired. In August
1663 he was appointed ' surveyor of the imprimery
and printing presses,' and to him was assigned ' the
sole licensing of all ballads, sheets, printed portraitures,
printed pictures, books, and papers,' except such as had
already been arranged for, and also ' all the sole pri-
vilege of writing, printing, and publishing all nai'ra-
tives, advertisements, mercuries, intelligencers, diurnals,
and other books of public intelligence, and printing of
all ballads, plays, maps, charts, portraitures, and pic-
tures, not previously printed, and all briefs for collec-
tions, play-bills, quack-salvers' bills, customs and
excise bills, post-office bills, creditors' bUls and
tickets, in England and Wales, and with power to
search for and seize unlicensed and treasonable, schis-
matical, and scandalous books and papers.'^ In plain
words he was constituted censor in general of all printed
or printable matter coming within the purview of the
secretary of state under the Licensing Act, head of a
sort of ' criminal investigation department ' for the
hunting down of all unlicensed literature and all its

' Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, vol. iv. p. 54.
VOL. I. D

34 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ]I.

producers and distributors, and sole monopolist of the
entire trade of journalism throughout England and
Wales. Of those functions he formally retained as many
and so much as he could down to 1 688, and he exercised
them vigorously for some time.

In August 1663, ' The Kingdom's Intelligencer ' and
' Mercurius Publicus,' which may or may not have been
edited up till then by Muddiman and Dury, or by one of
them, with or without the real or nominal supervision
of Birkenhead, were discontinued. Their places were
taken by ' The Intelligencer, published for the Satis-
faction and Information of the People, with Privilege,'
the first number of which appeared on Monday, August
31, and ' The News, published for the Satisfaction and
Information of the People, with Privilege,' the first
number of which appeared on Thursday, September 3 .
Reduced in size to eight small pages apiece, half the size
of their predecessors, these two papers furnished be-
tween them all the information which Charles II. 's
subjects were privileged to get, and with which they
had to be satisfied, unless they could supplement them
by written newsletters, which now came into fashion
again, or by such stray publications as were issued in
defiance of the law and were generally of a very coarse
quality.

More than half of the first number of ' The Intelli-
gencer,' the rest comprising two and a half pages of
foreign news and one page of advertisements, was
occupied with L'Estrange's prospectus of his new un-
dertakmg. ' His majesty,' as he said, ' having been
lately and graciously pleased to commit the privilege of
publishing all intelligence, together with the survey and
inspection of the press, to one and the same person,' he
thus explicitly declared his views and intentions : 'As to
the point of intelligence, I do declare myself (as I hope
T may in a matter left so absolutely indifi^erent, whether

1663. L'BSTEANGE'S 'INTELLIGENCER' 35

any or none), that, supposing the press in order, the
people in their right wits, and news or no news to be
the question, a public mercury should never have my
vote ; because I think it makes the multitude too fami-
liar with the actions and counsels of their superiors, too
pragmatical and censorious, and gives them not only
an itch, but a kind of colourable right and licence, to be
meddling with the government. All which (supposing
as before supposed) does not yet hinder but that in
this juncture a paper of that quality may be both safe
and expedient — truly if I should say necessary perhaps
the case would bear it, for certainly there is not any-
thing which at this instant more imports his majesty's
service and the public than to redeem the vulgar from
their former mistakes and delusions, and to preserve
them from the like for the time to come ; to both which
purposes the prudent management of a gazette may
contribute in a very high degree. For, besides that it
is everybody's money, and in truth a great part of most
men's study and business, it is none of the worst ways
of address to the genius and humour of the common
people, whose affections are much more capable of being
tuned and wrought upon by convenient touches iu the
shape and air of a pamphlet than by the strongest reason
and best notions imaginable under any other and more
sober form whatsoever. To which advantages of being
popular and grateful must be added, as none of the least,
that it is likewise reasonable and worth the while, were
there no other use of it than only to detect and disap-
point the maUce of those scandalous and false reports
which are daUy contrived and bruited against the
government.'

L'Estrange hoped, at starting, that 'once a week may
do the business, for I intend to utter my news by weight
and not by measure,' whence it would appear that the

B 2 ■

36 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ir,

publication of ' The News,' as a Thursday sequel to
Monday's ' Intelligencer,' was an afterthought ; but if
so, he was quickly led to act on his announcement that,
'if I shall find, when my hand is in, and after the
planting and securing of my correspondents, that the
matter will fairly furnish more, without either uncer-
tainty, repetition, or impertinence, I shall keep myself
free to double at pleasure.' He did 'double' in his
opening week, and even then had none too much space
for the news the public might have been glad to receive,
though much of the news he gave was hardly worth
printing. Here is a specimen paragraph fi'om the Bath
correspondent's letter of August 29, in the second
number of ' The Intelligencer :' — ' His majesty dined
with Sir John Talbot [at Newbury], and thence
marched to Bath, where their majesties, attended by
divers eminent persons, and all the maids of honour,
entered the town on horseback, to the abundant satis-
faction of the people, who had thereby the blessing of
so illustrious and divine a prospect.'

In his prospectus L'Estrange gave some account of
his licensing and inquisitorial plans in general, as well
as of his own editorial ideal. He had discovered that
there were far more printers in London than the law
allowed, and than in his opinion there was legitimate
occupation for. ' I find it in general, with the printers
as with their neighbours, there are too many of the
trade to live by one another. But more particularly I
find them clogged with three sorts of people — foreigners,
persons not free of the trade, and separatists ; ' and in
the retrenchment he contemplated, he said, ' the refor-
mation may begin there.' He invited all honest citizens
to help him in his reforming work. Whoever brought
him information leading to proof about ' any printing-
press erected and being in any private place, hole or

1063. THE PERSECUTION OF TWYN 37

corner, contrary to the tenor of tlie late act of parlia-
ment,' should receive a reward of forty shillings, ' with
what assui'ance of secrecy himself shall desire.' To
anyone who gave similar proof of a seditious and un-
licensed book being in the press, and rendered ' his aid
to the seizing of the copies and the offenders,' he offered
a reward of five pounds, and, among other bribes, one
of five shillings was proposed to anj'^one helping to
convict the hawker of an unlicensed book, pamphlet,
or newspaper. All promiscuous selling of books and
papers was obnoxious to him. ' The way as to the
vent that has been found most beneficial to the master
of the book has been to cry and expose it about the
streets by mercuries and hawkers ; ' but as ' under
countenance of that employment is carried on the
private trade of treasonous and seditious libels,'
L'Estrange declared his intention of putting a stop to
it. Even ' The Intelligencer ' or ' The News,' if any-
one desired to buy a copy, must be procured from the
printing and publishing ofiice or from an accredited
and respectable agent.

L'Estrange, while carrying on his newspaper mono-
poly, did his utmost to enforce his threats as ' surveyor
of the imprimery and printing presses.' It is on
record that one October evening in 1663, acting on in-
formation he had received, he proceeded with four
assistants to the house of a seditious printer named
Twyn in Cloth Fair. According to one of the assis-
tants' evidence, ' they knocked at least half an hour
before they got in,' it being long past midnight, and
while they waited they ' heard some papers tumbling
down and heard a rattling above.' Admitted at length,
they were in time to seize soqie type that had been
broken up and some sheets which had not been de-
stroyed, and which set forth in black and white, among

38 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ii,

other political heresies, the monstrous doctrine that
' the execution of judgment and justice is as well the
people's as the magistrate's duty, and if the magistrates
prevent judgment, the people are bound by the law
of God to execute judgment without them and upon
them.'

Here was ample occasion for arraignmg Twyn be-
fore the King's Bench. Twyn's apprentice being one
of the witnesses against him, he admitted that he had
undertaken to print the pamphlet, which he 'thought
was mettlesome stuff, but knew no hurt in it,' for a sum
of forty shillings, and in excuse he urged his poverty
and the need of earning money to procure bread for his
family. The jury found him guilty. ' I humbly beg
mercy,' exclaimed Twyn.. ' I am a poor man and have
three small children.' ' I'll tell you what you shall
do,' said Chief Justice Hyde ; ' ask mercy of them that
can give it, that is of God and the king.' ' I humbly
beseech you to intercede with his majesty for mercy,'
Twyn murmured. ' Tie him up, executioner ! ' shouted
the judge. ' I speak it from my soul, I think we have
the greatest happiness in the world in enjoying what
we do under so gracious and good a king ; and you,
Twyn, in the rancour of your heart thus to abuse him,
deserve no mercy.' An example should be made of
men who thus advocated disobedience to such a mo-
narch ; and the sentence passed on Twyn accordingly
was that he be hanged by the neck, cut down before he
was dead, shamefully mutilated, and his entrails taken
out ; ' and, you still living, the same to be burnt before
your eyes, your head to be cut off, and your head and
quarters to be disposed of at the pleasure of the king's
majesty.' ' I humbly beseech your lordship,' the printer
cried again, ' to remember my condition and intercede
for me.' ' I would not intercede for my own father in

1665. 'THE OXFORD GAZETTE' 39

this case if he were alive,' was the judge's rejoinder.
Twyn was therefore led back to Newgate and hurried
thence to Tyburn, where the main portion of the
sentence was carried out, his head and the fragments of
his body being afterwards set up ' on Ludgate, Alders-
gate, and the other gates of the city.' ^

Other victims in abundance, though none of them
quite so cruelly used, were found for Chief Justice Hyde
and other judges during many years by L'Estrange in
his capacity of persecutor of printers and suppressor of
seditious books, but his career as newspaper monopolist
was brief.

When in the autumn of 1665 Charles II. sought
shelter in Oxford from the Great Plague, he and his
courtiers wanted newspapers to read, yet feared to touch
' The Intelligencer ' or ' The News,' which, coming from
London, might be infected. Therefore Leonard Litch-
field, the university printer, was authorised or ordered
to bring out a local paper. On Tuesday, November
14, the first number of ' The Oxford Gazette ' appeared,
and it was continued afterwards through eleven weeks
on Thursdays and Mondays. It was meagre enough,
but, though comprised in only two double-columned
pages of folio, each number contained nearly as much
matter as one of L'Estrange's papers, and it soon
became a formidable rival to those papers, especially
as Thomas Newcombe, the old printer of the Common-
wealth organs, was allowed to reproduce its sheets in
London ' for the use of some members and gentlemen
who desired bhem.' How angry L'Estrange was at
this competition and overriding of his privilege may be
inferred from the fact that on Tuesday, November 28,
he brought out the first number of a ' Public Intelli-
gence,' matching ' The Oxford Gazette ' in size, with
* State Trials, vol. vi. p. 539.

40 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ir.

this preface : ' You may perceive, my masters, that
your ' Intelligencer ' has changed his title, his form, and
his day, for which I could give you twenty shrewd
reasons if I were not more obliged to gratify a point of
prudence in myself than a curiosity in others, and I
do assure you there is both discretion and modesty in
the case. This short account will satisfy the wise,
and I shall leave the rest to content themselves at
leisure.'

We can imagine the quarrelling and heartburning
that must have occurred over this business. L'Estrange
was not a man to yield meekly to interference with his
' rights.' But he had to yield now, and the issue of the
turmoil was that, the new ' Intelligence ' dying in its
infancy, and the old ' News ' being soon discontinued —
the plague, moreover, being over and King Charles
being back at Whitehall — ' The Oxford Gazette ' was
succeeded by ' The London Gazette,' which made its
first appearance, labelled as No. 24, on February 5,
1666, and which has kept alive, altei'ing its size and
character from time to time, down to this day.

When it started it was only an ordinary newspaper,
furnishing very little news, and that not always or
often accurate, but treating in its way of whatever was
thought to be interesting or safe reading for the public.
From the first, however, it was more strictly an official
organ than any of the older ' Diurnals,' ' Mercuries,' or
' Intelligencers ' had been. Its Oxford pioneer having
apparently been edited by Henry Muddiman, we are
told that after a few numbers had appeared ' Mr. Joseph
Williamson, under secretary of state, procured the
writing of them for himself, and thereupon employed
Charles Perrot, M.A., and fellow of Oriel College
in Oxon, who had a good command of his pen, to do
that office under him, and so he did, though not con-

1666-1679. 'THE LONDON GAZETTE' 41

stantly, to about 1671.' ^ Except in its emptiness and
wortlilessness there was nothing notable about ' The
London Gazette ' in these or later years.^

Yet, such as it was, it was almost the only news-
paper allowed to Charles II.'s subjects till near the end
of his reign. A few ribald sheets, licentious but not
trenching on forbidden ground, passed the censorship,
and appeared from time to time ; but these were crude
and coarse forerunners of the magazines rather than
newspapers, and everything in the nature of political
information or controversy was sternly repressed by the
licencers. Though L'Estrange had been ousted from
the official editorship, he was still licencer of papers,
and therefore able to prohibit them. The only im-
portant paper during ten years, indeed, except ' The
London Gazette,' and hardly a rival to it, was a specu-
lation of the licencer himself. ' The City Mercuiy, or
Advertisements concerning Trade,' started in November
1675, was, as its title announced, a trade organ. It
bore this business-like announcement : ' Advertise-
ments received at the Intelligence Offices, upon the
Royal Exchange, and next door to the Pigeon Tavern,
near Charing Cross. Complaints rectified on appli-
cation to Mr. Roger L'Estrange, in Gifi'ord's Builduigs,
Holborn.'

In the same category, but of later date, must be
placed a humbler paper, depending on advertisements
alone for its profits, a 'Domestic Intelligence,' 'pub-
lished gratis for the promoting x)f trade,' which was
begun in 1679 by Nathaniel Thompson, and also a pre-
cursor of literary journals, ' Mercurius Librarius, or a

^ Wood, Afhenx Oxonienses, vol. iii. p. 1185.

* For a long time, down to 1696 at any rate, a version of the Gazette
•was issued in French — Cfazette de Londres, 'publico arec privilege.' In
1678, as appears by the Commons' Journals, the printer got into trouble
by mistranslating an important passage about popish recusants.

42 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. n.

Faithful Account of all Books and Pamphlets,' which
appeared in 1680. ' All booksellers that approve of
the design of publishing this catalogue weekly, or once
in fourteen days at least,' it was said in the first
number of ' Mercurius Librarius,' ' are desired to send
in to one of the undertakers any book, pamphlet, or
sheet they would have in it, so soon as published, that
they may be inserted in order as they come out. Their
books shall be delivered them back again upon demand.
To show they design the public advantage of the trade,
they will expect but sixpence for inserting any book,
nor but twelvepence for any other advertisement relating
to the trade, unless it be excessive long.' The book-
sellers' trade was not brisk enough to supply many of
the coveted advertisements, and of course no criticism
of books was offered in ' Mercurius Librarius.'

The somewhat greater liberty accorded to printers
and authors in the later years of Charles II. was partly
due to the growth of public opinion, and partly to the
lapsing, for a time, of the Licensing Act itself, conse-
quent on the same cause. There was no extension of
liberty to political writers opposed to the dominant
party, however, and the cessation of the Licensing Act
only resulted in an outburst of worse tyranny. The
short parliament of 1679, dominated by John Locke's
friend, the first Earl of Shaftesbury, which passed the
Habeas Corpus Act, and which was dismissed in order
to prevent the threatened passuig of the Exclusion
Bill, had no chance of refusing to renew the expiring
Licensing Act, as it would certainly have done ; but the
parliamentary strength of those who aaow began to be
called Whigs by no means lessened the zeal or weakened
the power of the courtiers, henceforth to be styled
Tories, who ruled the bench, and from it overawed the
country.

1680. TYEANNY AT ITS HEIGHT 43

On May 12, 1680, just a year after Charles 11. had
begun to imitate his father's attempts to govern without
a parliament, appeared a proclamation ' for suppressiag
the printing and publishing of unlicensed newsbooks
and pamphlets of news.' ' Whereas,' it amiounced,
' it is of great importance to the state that all news
printed and published to the people, as well concerning ■
foreign as domestic affairs, should be agreeable to
truth, or at least warranted by good intelligence, that
the minds of his majesty's subjects may not be dis-
turbed or amused by lies or vain reports, which are
many times raised on purpose to scandalise the govern-
ment, or for other indirect ends ; and whereas of late
many evU-disposed persons have made it a common
practice to print and publish pamphlets of news without
licence or authority, and therein have vended to his
majesty's people all the idle and malicious reports that
they could collect or invent, contrary to law, the con-
tinuance whereof would, in a short time, endanger the
peace of the kingdom, the same manifestly tending
thereto, as has been declared by all his majesty's judges
unanimously ; his majesty, therefore, considering the
great mischief that may ensue upon such licentious and
illegal practices, if not timely prevented, hath thought
fit, with the advice of his privy council, strictly to
prohibit and forbid all persons whatsoever to print or
publish any newsbooks or pamphlets of news not
licensed by his majesty's authorit}''.' ^ That was
clearly an usurpation by the crown of powers which,
formerly conferred upon it by parliament, had lapsed
in theory and in law ; and for having had a leading
hand in recommendiog it Chief Justice Scroggs was
impeached in 1681.^

' London Gazette, May 17, 1680.

' State Trials, vol. vii. p. 1127 ; vol. viii. pp. 184 and 197.

44 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ir.

The immediate occasion of this royal and jiidicial
lawlessness was the appearance of an especially ob-
noxious article in a Protestant newspaper, ' The Weekly
Packet of Advice from liome,' which had contrived, in
'defiance of the Licensing Act, to issue its first number
in December 1678, and had continued to expose and
attack the machinations of the Duke of York, after-
wards King James 11. , and his partisans. The article
in question, which appeared in April 1680, was in this
style : ' There is lately found out by an experienced
physician an incomparable medicament called the
wonder-working plaister, truly Catholic in operation,
somewhat of kin to the Jesuits' powder, but more
effectual. The virtues of it are strange and various.
It will make justice deaf as well as blind,' &c. For
writhig or publishing it Henry Carr, ' of the parish
■of St. Sepulchre, gentleman,' the conductor of ' The
Weekly Packet,' was arraigned at Guildhall before
Chief Justice Scroggs, Mr. Recorder Jeffreys being
the prosecuting counsel. Though Stevens, the printer,
refused to give criminating evidence, and though Sir
Francis Winnington, the defendant's counsel, urged
that there was no proof of authorship, the judge made
short work of the trial. ' You see what a case we are
in, gentlemen,' he exclaimed to the jury; 'you see
what a sort of people we are got among ! ' Then he
laid it down as 'law,' that, 'to print or publish any
newsbook or pamphlet of news whatsoever is illegal ;
it is a manifest intent to the breach of the peace.' ' If
so be that printers and booksellers will undertake to
print news foolishly they ought to be punished, and
shall be punished if they do it without authority,
though there is nothing reflecting on the government,
as an unlawful thing.' ' You do not swear,' he added,
' nor are you bound to swear here, that he was the

1680. THE PERSECUTION OF HENRY CARR 45

publisher of the book, but if you find him guilty you
only swear you believe it so.' The jury, less compliant
than most in those days, spent an hour in arriving at a
verdict of guilty and earning Scroggs's praise, ' You
have done like honest men ! ' ^

What sentence was passed on Carr, or what punish-
ment he endured, is not recorded. Probably he re-
canted, for we are told of him that ' after King James II.
came to the crown, he was drawn over so far by the
Roman Catholic party, for bread and money's sake, and
nothing else, to write on their behalf, and to vindicate
their proceedings against the Church of England in his
mercuries, which weekly came out, entitled " Public
Occurrences Truly Stated." ' ^

There were many other state trials in these evil
days for ' unlicensed printing.' Some victims escaped
with fines, others were imprisoned or put in the pillory;
but though the motives and intentions of the authorities
were as tyrannical as they could have been in the
darkest period of Star Chamber rule, or as they were
when L'Estrange, still a licencer and now Sir Koger,
was fresh in office, and when Twyn was hanged, muti-
lated, and quartered, less judicial murder and actual
torture of condemned offenders were ventured upon.
The motives and iatentions, however, were none the
less reprehensible because they were partly impotent
and whoUy contemptible, and all the contempt the
authorities brought upon themselves was not enough to
render them quite impotent. The six years during
which Charles II. and his minions did not dare to seek
renewal of the Licensing Act were ugly years. The

' State Trials, vol. vii. pp. 1111-1130.

* Wood, Athenx Oxonienses. Wood speaks of him as Henry Cave,
evidently an error, as the ' certain scribbler, in his Weekly Packet of
Advice from Rome,' referred to by Wood, can only have been Carr.

46 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ii.

impeachment of Scroggs, for advising the proclamation
of 1680, for ordering unlaAvful search after what were
pretended to be unlawful publications and their pro-
ducers, and for other treasons against equity and
morality, fell through, and the threat of it only led to
his dismissal ; and Chief Justice Scroggs was succeeded
after a year's interval by Chief Justice Jeffreys. Mat-
ters were worse under James II. than under Charles
II., and not mended all at once when William of
Orange came over to try his hand at righting them.
Yet lessons in liberty, in the ways of winning it and
in the ways of using it, were being slowly and painfuUj?-
learnt, for which we who live in happier times and
who profit by their misfortunes should not be ungrate-
ful to the luckless pioneers who caused them to be
taught.^

Unable, with their utmost violence, to prevent the
publication of all obnoxious newspapers, either in the
year before or in the few years after the lapsing of the
Licensing Act, King Charles and his miiaisters allowed
and encouraged the appearance of journals friendly to
them, and they even sought by banter, and what pur-
ported to be argument, to curb the rebellious spirit that
their terrorism could not frighten. ' Heraclitus Ridens,
or a Discourse between Jest and Earnest, where many
a True Word is pleasantly spoken in Opposition to
Libellers against the Government,' was an authorised
comic weekly which was begun in February 1681 and
continued till August 1682 ; and a more important
ministerial organ, offering criticism on news instead of

^ See the Journals of the House of Commoiis, the State Trials, the news-
papers of the day, and other contemporary matter. Hallam devoted a
few pages to the subject in the thirteenth chapter of his Constitu-
tional Histoiy ; but strangely little has been said on it by modern
writers, even by Macaulay.

1681. L'ESTKAJSTGE'S ' OBSERVATOR ' 47

news itself, was ' The Observator,' started by Sir Roger
L'Estrange in April 1681.

Still a zealous paid servant of the government,
though his functions as licencer and 'surveyor of im-
primery and printing presses ' were legally in abeyance,
L'Estrange did what he could to earn his money. ' My
business,' he said in the first number of ' The Obser-
vator,' ' is to encounter the faction and to vuadicate
the government, to detect their ' — meaning only the
faction's — ' forgeries, to lay open the rankness of their
calumnies and malice, to refute their seditious doctrines,
to expose their hypocrisy and the bloody design that
is caiTied on under the name and semblance of rehgion,
;and, in short, to lift up the cloak of the true Protestant
(as he christens himself) and to show the people the
Jesuit that lies skulking under it.' ' The Observator '
was not to be a weekly paper, but to appear ' oftener
■or seldomer as I see occasion.' As it happened, it was
issued twice a week at first, and afterwards three or
sometimes four numbers were printed every week, each
in two foho pages of the size of ' The Gazette; ' and it was
kept up with some cleverness till the eve of the Revolu-
tion.'^ It was written in ' question and answer ' — that is,
in the form of a desultory debate or controversy between
a typical Whig and a typical Tory. As a matter of
•course, all the wisdom and virtue were on the side ofy
the Tory ; but we see clear evidence of the dire .gx-
tremity in which the Stuart party now found itgelf, in
the fact that so hot-headed and unscrupulou^g a cham-
pion of despotism as L'Estrange deemed it necessary
to make even a pretence of arguing with his foes. That

1 ' In 1687,' says Wood, ' he was obliged to lay down The Observator,
as he could not agree with the toleration proposed by his majesty
[James II.], though in all other respects he had gone the utmost
lengths.'

48 UNDER TBGE LICENSING ACT on. ir.

he did this grudgingly, and without change from his
old prejudice against public discussion or enlighten-
ment, is clear enough. ' 'Tis one thing in the house,
another in the press,' he said in one of his numbers -
' and there are many cases that may be fairly enough
agitated in a regular debate that may yet be of per-
nicious consequence in the exposure of them to the
people. I have observed very ill effects many times
from the ordinary written papers of parliament news
by making the coffee-houses and all the popular clubs
judges of those counsels and deliberations which they
have nothing to do withal.' ^

The coffee-houses thus referred to had by this time
become formidable centres of political discussion and
agencies for the spread of political information. To
them resorted all who were interested in piiblic affairs,
and not able to buy the newspapers for themselves, or
not satisfied with the small information and unsafe
guidance they found in them.^ There were Tory
coffee-houses as well as Whig coffee-houses, at which
rival partisans not only read and talked over the
printed papers, but furnished one another with fuller
details than the papers contained, and often got sight of
the news-letters which, as in the days before news-
papers began, were now widely circulated. So it was
in London, and so, too, in the provincial towns which

' The Observator, March 21, 1684.

- As far back as 1663 an old versifier, who objected both to coffee-
shopa and to newspapers, complained of —

These less than coffee's self, these coffee men.
These sons of nothing, that can hardly make
Their broth for laughing how the jest doth take,
Yet grin and give ye, for the vine's pure blood,
A loathsome potion not yet understood —
Syrup of soot, or essence of old shoes.
Dashed with diurnals or the book of news.

Andrews, History of British Journalism, vol. i. p. 64.

1682. COFFEE-HOUSE POLITICS 49

"were dependent on London for nearly all their news.
Roger North tells us of Ms brother John, who was
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and who died in
1682, that 'whilst he was at Jesus College, coffee was
not of such common use as afterwards, and coffee-
houses but young. At that time, and long after, there
was but one, kept by one Kirk. The trade of news
also was scarce set up ; for they had only the public
" Gazette " tdl Kirk got a written news-letter circulated
by one Muddiman. But now the case is much altered,
for it is become a custom, after chapel, to repair to one
or other of the coffee-houses, for there are divers, where
hours are spent in talking, and less profitable reading
of newspapers, of which swarms are continually sup-
plied from London. And the scholars are so greedy
after news, which is none of their business, that they
neglect all for it ; and it is become very rare for any of
them to go directly to his chamber after prayers with-
out doing his suit at the coffee-house, which is a vast
loss of time.' ^

' So fond are men in these days,' Chief Justice
Scroggs complained, when he was trjdng Henry Carr
for his article in ' The Weekly Packet,' ' that when
they will deny their children a penny for bread, they
will lay it out for a pamphlet ; and the temptations are
so great that no man can keep twopence, ill his pocket
because of the news.' ^ Against this appetite, and the
political turmoil which caused it "akd by which it was
increased, no tyranny could prevail. In spite of the
efforts of unscrupulous judges and courtly politicians
to establish a more grinding despotism without the
Licensing Act than had been maintained under it,
several unKcensed newspapers were circulated, and com-

' Life of Dr. John North ; see also Eoger North's Examiner, p. 133.

'^ State Trials, vol. vii. p. 1120.

VOL. I. E

50 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ii.

peted successfully with the authorised journals, during
the last years of Charles II. 's reign.

It was different in the three and a half disastrous
years in which James II. was allowed to occupy the
throne. The Licensiag Act was promptly revived for
a term of seven years from 1685, and thus gave a form
of legality to the persecution which the king and such
agents as Kirke and Jeffreys were quite ready to indulge
in without any excuse in law. Newspaper history, there-
fore, throughout this dismal period is almost a blank.
Such journals as were sanctioned by the authorities
continued to be published, giving even more meagrely
and partially than heretofore so much news as those
authorities deemed suitable for public reading, but it
does not appear that a single fresh paper was started,
and the men who were brought to trial and punished
by Judge Jeffreys and others under the Licensing Act
were writers of books, like Eichard Baxter and Samuel
Johnson, the theologian, not writers of newspapers.

Happier times began when James was deposed and
William of Orange accepted as king. On December 12,
1688, the very day after James's flight, three new
papers were started, ' The Universal Intelligencer,' ' The
English Currant,' and ' The London Courant.' ' The
London Mercury ' followed on the 18th, and ' The
Orange Grazette' on the 31st, 'The London Intelli-
gencer' being added to the list on January 15, 1689.
None of these, nor others which began to be issued
shortly afterwards, call for much notice. Most of them
were bald records of news, differing little in matter from
' The London Gazette,' with which they corresponded in
size.^ They are interesting, however, as evidence that,

' Two papers of this period call for mention. One was Tlie Athenian
Mermiry (called The Athenian Gazette in tlie first number), started in
March 1690 by John Dunton, an eccentric printer, who tells us in his

1685-1688. FROM JAMES II. TO WILLIAM IH. 51

though the legal restrictions on a free press were still
in existence, these were by no means so stringently

Life and Errors (p. 248) that it was intended ' to open the avenue,
raise the soul, and restore the knowledge of truth and happiness that had
wandered so long unknown and found out by few.' A sort of seventeenth-
century Notes and Quei-ies, dealing with philosophical or fanciful, instead
of with antiquarian matters, The Atlienian Mercurywas issued weekly till
February 1696, when Dunton converted it into a quarterly magazine, on
the ground that ' as the coffee-houses have the Votes every day and nine
newspapers every week,' there was hardly room for his periodical, although
he designed ' to continue it again as a weekly paper as soon as the glut of
news is a little over.' The other paper was A Collection for the Improve-
ment of Husbandry and Trade, commenced in 1692 by Jolm Houghton,
F.B.S., and continued till 1703, which gave information and advice on
various subjects, but which soon came to be especially an advertising
channel, the editor constituting himself in a curious way an intermediary
between his advertisers and his readers. Here are some specimens of his
announcements : ' I have met with a curious gardener, that will furnish
anybody that sends to me for fruit trees and floral slirubs and garden
seeds. I have made him promise, with all solemnity, that whatever he
sends me shall be purely good, and I verily believe he may be depended
on.' 'If any want all kinds of necessaries for corpse and funerals, 1 can
help to one who does assure me he wUl use them kindly ; and whoever can
keep their corpse till they get to London, and have a coflin set down, may
have them afterwards kept any reasonable time.' ' If any divine or their
relicts have complete sets of manuscript sermons upon the Epistles and
Gospels, the Catecliisms or Festivals, I can help to a customer.' 'Mr.
David Rose, chirurgeon and man-midwife, lives at the first brick house
on the right in Grun Yard, Houndsditch, near Aldgate, London. I have
known him these twenty years.' 'If any want a wet-nurse, I can help
them, as I am informed, to a very good one.' 'If any justice of peace
wants a clerk, I can help to one that has been so seven years ; under-
stands accounts ; to be a butler ; also to receive money. He also can
shave and buckle wigs.' ' If I can meet with a sober man that has a
counter-tenor voice, I can help him to a place worth thirty pounds the
year, or more.' 'I want a complete young man that will wear a livery,
to wait on a very valuable gentleman ; but he must know how to play on
a violin or flute.' ' One that has waited upon a lady divers years and
understands all affl,irs in hoiisekeeping and the needle, desires some such
place. She seems a discreet, staid body.' 'I know of several men and
women whose friends would gladly have them matched, which I'll endea-
vour to do, as from time to time I shall hear of such whose circumstances
are likely to agree ; and I'll assure such as will come to me it shall be done
with all the honour and secrecy imaginable. Their own parents shall not
manage it more to their satisfaction ; and the more comes to me, the
better I shall be able to serve 'em.'

52 UNDER THE LICENSING ACT ch. ii.

enforced. There had for a long time past been freedom
of the press in Holland, and King William was in no
mood to make much use of the tyrannical opportunities
offered to him in England. It must be noted, too, that
with very few exceptions the newspapers, old and new,
which touched on politics, sided with the Whigs who
were now in the ascendant, such Tory criticisms and
complaints as were ventured upon not being thought
dangerous enough to need suppressing, so that there
was small provocation for tyranny. James Fraser,
' commonly called Catalogue Fraser, from his skill in
books and constant frequenting of auctions,' who took
the place of L'Estrange^ as Hcencer under the new
ministry, was, we are told, 'kind and temperate,'^ and
little or no difficulty occurred till 1692, when, for too
much liberality, Fraser was dismissed. Edmund Bohun,
who succeeded him, was more meddlesome,^ but before
he or anyone else could work much mischief, licencer-
ships had been abolished.

The Licensing Act, brought up for renewal in
February 1693, was passed, notwithstanding some
vigorous protests, in which Halifax and other "WTiig
peers took active part, but only for two years. In
February 1695, the House of Commons decided, with-
out a division, that it should not be again renewed.
The Lords thought otherwise, and there was a dispute

1 L'Estrange died in 1704 at the age of eighty-seve n.

' Dunton, Life, and Errors, p. 350. Dunton says that his own pay-
ments in licensing fees to Eraser amounted, during several years, to at
least 30J. a year, and ' I suppose other booksellers were as forward as
myself to have recourse to him, which made his salary very considerable ;
and he deserved every penny of it.' From the same informant we learn
that at least one of Eraser's subordinates, Robert Stephens, ' the mes-
senger of the press,' did not object to taking presents when he was wanted
to wink at questionable publications. This, however, was probably oftener
the case with books and pamphlets than with newspapers.

' Macaulay, History of England, chap. xix.

1688-1695. THE BEGINNING OF LIBERTY 53

between the houses on the matter. A string of weighty
arguments which had been drawn up by John Locke
was, however, submitted to the conference at which the
question was to be decided on April 18, and the Lords
surrendered.^ Thus the way was opened, though not
quite cleared, for far more progress of newspaper enter-
prise than had hitherto been possible.

' Maoaulay, History of Englaiid, chap. xix. Some account of this
business is given in my Life of John Locke, vol. ii. pp. 311-316.

54

CHAPTER III.

OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION.
1695—1714.

Newspapers improved but slowly after the Revolution
of 1688. They increased in numbers and gained a little
independence, even while the Licensing Act continued ;
but they were still small clumsy sheets, issued once,
twice, or, in the case of ' The London Gazette,' thrice a
week, generally offering two double-columned foho pages
for a penny, and furnishing only a scanty supply of
news, either dry and not always accurate official in-
formation, in which the most important matters were
rarely taken account of, and very rarely indeed taken
due account of, or composed of brief and inaccurate
scraps of gossip, chiefly from abroad and about foreign
events. As caterers of news they were crude and faulty,
and as critics and commentators they were yet more
defective. Such as they were, however, they were
popular. ' The press was again set to work,' said a
writer m one of them in 1712, referring to the change
wrought by the Revolution, ' and such a furious itch of
novelty has ever since been the epidemical distemper,,
that it has proved fatal to many families, the meanest
of shopkeepers and handicrafts spending whole days in
coffee-houses to hear news and talk politics, whilst their
wives and children wanted bread at home, and, their
business being neglected, they were themselves thrust

1695. WILLIAM m.'S NEWSPAPERS 55

into gaols or forced to take sanctuary in the army.
Hence sprang that inundation of " Postmen," " Post-
boys," " Evening Posts," " Supplements," " Daily
Courants," and " Protestant Postboys," amounting to
twenty-one every week, besides many more, which have
not survived to this time, and besides " The Gazette,"
which has the sanction of public authority.' ^

Immediately after the abolition of the Licensing Act
several new papers, taking advantage of the greater
freedom now allowed by law, were started. First in
the field was ' The Flying Post,' begun on May 11,
1695, by George Ridpath, described as ' a considerable
scholar, well acquainted with the languages, a Scotch-
man, and designed first for the ministry - but, by some
uixfortunate accident or other, the fate of an author
came upon him.' ^ His nationality showed itself in the
prominence given to Scotch news in ' The Flying Post,'
which was ' highly valued and sold well,' and in which
Ridpath announced in his first number, ' our design is
not to interfere with " The London Gazette," but to
pursue another method, there being many things below
its cognisance that are urgent to be known, and may give
further light into present transactions.'

' Intelligence, Domestic and Foreign,' followed on
May 14, and was continued on Tuesdays and Fridays

' The British Mercury, August 2, 1712. This was a shrewd combina-
tion of a touting miscellany and a newspaper, ' printed for the Company
of the Sun Fire Office, in Threadneedle Street, behind the Royal Ex-
change, London, where policies are delivered out for insuring houses,
movable goods, furniture, and wares from loss and damage by fire, in any
part of Great Britain, for the value of 5001. each policy to any person who
shall take them, paying the stamp duty and the first quarter, namely two
shillings, if they desire no British Mercury ; or two sliillings and sixpence,
'if they will have it.' Tlie British Mercury was thus, to all intents and
purposes, a halfpenny newspaper. When the Stamp Act of 1712 ruined
many papers, it was able to boast itself strong enough to sustain no
age.
Dunton, Life and Errors, p. 229.

56 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ce. iit.

for a short time ; but it seems never to have won much
favour, and soon dropped out. Its conductor was
Benjamin Harris, a zealous Whig, who had suflfered for
his pohtics several years before, especially through
his support of the Exclusion Bill in 1681. ' Some time
since,' he said in his preface, ' I published an " Intelli-
gence," with the like title, wherein upon all occasions I
vigorously asserted the laws and liberties of England
against the bold and open violators of both, which pro-
cured me so many inveterate enemies, that to save my
life and my family from rain, I was compelled to be an
exile from my native country for above eight years ; ^
but now being returned, I know no reason why I may
not endeavour in some measure to retrieve my losses
and misfortunes by the same methods under the happy
government of his present majesty who hath so glo-
riously restored and confirmed our rights and privileges
to us.' Harris proposed ' to make reflections ' as well
as to give news, but his honest efforts were surpassed
by younger rivals. After the failure of his ' Intelli-
gence,' he started another paper, ' The London Post.'

' The Postboy, an Historical Account of the Public
Transactions of this Nation,' which first appeared on
May 17, was a diligent reporter of foreign, and particu-
larly of Spanish events, as well as of events nearer
home, though these, alike in ' The Postboy' and in
other papers, were only few, vague, and briefly reported,
as in the following sentences : — ' 'Tis said that the Tsar
of Muscovy was at the playhouse on Saturday to see the
opera.' ' 'Tis believed that the Earl of Portland is by

^ ' In Charles II. 'a reign,' says Dunton, ' they fined him 5001. and set
him once in the pillory, but his wife, like a kind rib, stood beside him to
defend her husband against the mob. After this, having a deal of mercury
in his natural temper, he travelled to New England, where he followed
bookselling, and then coifee-selling, and then printing, but continued Ben
Harris still.' — Life and Errors, p. 293.

1695. A BUDGET OF 'POSTS' 57

this time at Paris.' ' I hear that the revel in the Temple
will end on Friday next, at which time there is to be
a masquerade.' ^ ' The Postboy,' commenced by one
Thomas, acquired more influence when it fell into the
liands of Abel Boyer, afterwards author of ' Annals of
Queen Anne ' and other books, and compiler of a long
popular English and French dictionary, of whom we
are told that he ' writes and translates like the famous
L'Estrange,' and ' is the greatest master of the French
language and the most impartial historian of any we
have in England.' ^

' Post ' was now as favourite a name for newspapers
as ' Diurnal ' or ' Mercuiy ' had formerly been, and
prominent among other journals started in 1695 were
' The Postman,' edited by a French Protestant named
Fonvive, and ' The EngHsh Post,' edited by Nathaniel
Crouch. According to contemporary evidence, Crouch
'is a very ingenious person, and can talk fine things
upon any subject,' and of Fonvive it was reported that
' his learning deserves respect and his gravity a weekly
panegyric ; his sagacious look is an index of his
thoughtful soul ; he is ever cheerful (the gaining of
■6001. a year by a penny paper would make any man
so) ; to carry on his weekly chronicle as to foreign
news he has settled a good correspondence in Italy,
Spain, Portugal, Germany, Flanders, Holland, &c.' ^

Though newspapers were so plentiful at this time,
news-letters were not yet out of fashion, and ' The Flying
Post ' invited its readers, if they liked, to combine the
two arrangements. ' If any gentleman has a mind to
■oblige his country friend or correspondent with this

' The Postboy, January 18 and 20, 1697.

" Dunton, Idfe and Errors, p. 240.

' Ibid. Diuiton praises some other old newspaper men, and speaks of
•others as ' a rabble of scandalous hackneys, fit for no company or honour
but a house of correction.' ^

58 ouTcoiME or the revolution ch. ni..

account of public affairs,' it was announced, ' he may-
have it for twopence of J. Salisbury, at the Rising Sun,
in Cornhill, on a sheet of fine paper, half of which
being blank he may thereon write his own private-
business or the material news of the day.' Ichabod
Dawks, who started his ' News-letter ' in August
1696, went further in the same direction. His paper
was printed from type in imitation of handwriting, and
thus specially recommended in its prospectus : ' This
letter will be done upon good writing-paper, and blank
space left that any gentleman may write his own pri-
vate business. It does undoubtedly exceed the best of
the written news, contains double the quantity, with
abundance more ease and pleasure, and will be useful
to improve the younger sort in writing a curioi-is
hand.'

Whether or not 'Dawks's News-letter' was much
used as a copy-book among the ' younger sort,' some
older people, of the Sir Roger de Coverley sort, liked
to get their news in this way. ' It is our custom at
Sir Roger's, upon the coming in of the post,' Addison
wrote in the ' Spectator,' ' to sit about a pot of coifee,
and hear the old knight read Dyer's letter, which he
does with his spectacles upon his nose and in an
audible voice, smiling very often at those little strokes
of satire which are so frequent in the writings of that
author.' ^

Dyer's news-letters were not printed, but he was a,
printer who got into trouble more than once. In the
early years of William III.'s reign his manuscript re-
ports of current events, strongly flavoured with Jacobite
opinions, circulated widely among the Tories and Stuart,
sympathisers, and gave great offence to the govern-
ment. Dyer had been twice imprisoned for seditious-

' The Spectator, July 2C>, 1711.

1695. DYER AND HIS NEWS-LETTER 59'

publications before 1694, when, much to the annoyance
of the authorities, he was acquitted on a charge of
having turned the Lancashire plot into ridicule.^ In
December of the same year he was summoned to appear
at the bar of the House of Commons, and there repri-
manded ' for his great presumption ' in taking notice of
the proceedings of parhament.^ This appears to have
been the first instance in William's time of iasistance
on a parliamentary privilege which led to much quar-
relling and petty persecution in later years. Besides
reprimanding Dyer, the House of Commons passed a
resolution ' that no news-letter writers do, in their let-
ters or other papers that they disperse, presume to in-
termeddle with the debates or any other proceedings of
jJie houise^ Dyer was" not thereby sUenced. ' Such a
gentle rebuke,' it was said, ' could not reform a fellow
who wrote for two very necessitous causes — for the
Jacobite party and for bread. But the Lord Mohun
rebuked him more effectually some time after ; for,,
finding him at one of his factious coffee-houses and
showing him a letter wherein his lordship was named,.
Dyer owned it, not knowing my lord, who immediately
laid on him with a cudgel he had provided for that
purpose, and made him swear to have no more to say
of the Lord Mohun.' ^ That example was followed with
worse results afterwards by other aggrieved noblemen
and gentlemen.

Parliament, meanwhile, though it would not, or
could not, emulate the old tyrannies, persisted in such
minor persecutions as were in its way, especially in
assertion of what it regarded as its right to immunity
from all criticising or even reporting of its conduct.

' Macaulay, History of England, chap. xx.
= Knight Hunt, Fourth Estate, vol. i. p. 164.
' Kennet, History, vol. iii. p^ 666.

60 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. in.

The House of Commons having in 1696 sanctioned the
issue of exchequer bills, ' The Flying Post ' hazarded
this mild statement in its number for April 1, 1697 :
' We hear that when the exchequer notes are given out
upon the capitation fund, whosoever shall desire specie
on them shall have it at 5^ per cent, of the society
of gentlemen that have subscribed to advance some
100,000/.' On the ground that this was a malicious
insinuation, tending to damage the credit of the ex-
chequer bUls, the house ordered the printer, John
Salisbury, into custody.^ There was even some talk of
reviving the Licensing Act as a necessary means to
keeping the press in order, and a bill to this intent was
brought in. It was defeated on the motion for its second
reading, and never heard of again, but many efforts
were made to act upon its spirit. After William III.'s
death in March 1702 the Tories, whom Queen Anne
favoured, were as tyrannical as they dared to be.
Happily, they were not able to do much.

One of their victims was John Tutchin, an old
offender though a young man when he died. Tutchin,
a stripling at the time, had in the days of James II.
been condemned to imprisonment for seven years and
to be whipped once every year through all the market
towns in Dorsetshire because he had written some
seditious verses. Having caught smallpox while in
gaol, he had been released through the iniiuence of
friends with money enough to buy a pardon ; but his
early sufferings only made him a more zealous politician
than before.^ In conjunction with John How, the

' Parliamentary History, vol. v. p. 1164. No complaint, however, was
made of friendly notices ; thus The Postman of May 7, 1697, said of the
exchequer bills, ' They are found by experience to be of extraordinary
use to the merchants and traders of the city of London and all other
parts of the kingdom.'

Knight Hunt, Fourth Estate, vol. i. pp. 109-172.

T702-1701. JOHN TUTCHIN'S ' OBSERVATOR ' 61

printer, he started ' The Observator,' a new paper
■which adopted L'Estrange's lapsed title and imitated it
in some other respects, though on different party lines,
on April 1, IZOS.-"- It was hx the nature of a weekly-
pamphlet rather than a newspaper, and, after the nine-
teenth number, was in the form of a series of dialogues
between an outspoken Whig and a countryman. One
of his friends spoke of him as ' the loyal and ingenious
Tutchin, the bold assertor of EngHsh liberties, the
scourge of the highfliers, the seaman's advocate, the
detector of the Victualling Ofl&ce, the scorn and terror
of fools and knaves, the nation's Argus ; ' and, it was
added, ' he writes with the air of a gentleman and sin-
cerity of a Christian.' ''' The government did not like
Tutchin's way of writing. In January 1704 the House
of Commons resolved ' that " The Observator " from
December 8 to 12 contains matter scandalous and
malicious, reflecting on the proceedings of the house,
tending to the promotion of sedition in the kingdom,
and that Tutchin, the author. How, the printer, and /
Bragg, the publisher of that paper, should be taken /
into custody by the sergeant-at-arms.' ^ No action I
appears to have been pursued against How or Bragg, '
but Tutchin was arrested, bailed out for 1,000/., and ^
brought up for trial at the Queen's Bench Court in
November. He was found guilty by the jury ; but on
a plea from his counsel that there had been an error in
the indictment, the judges decided in his favour, leave
being given for a new trial. This never came off, and
Tutchin persevered with his plain speaking in ' The
Observator ' for some while. In his case, as in Dyer's

' From the evidence given at the trial in 1704, it appears that How
paid Tutchin half a guinea for writing each number of The Observator. —
Howell's State Trials, vol. xiv. p. 1105.

'' Dunton, Life and Errws. ^ Commons' Joii/rnals, vol. xiv. p. 270.

'62 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. ni.

however, and with worse result, private hands adminis-
tered to him the punishment that the law did not
isanction. He was waylaid one night and so cruelly
beaten that he died soon afterwards.^

A far greater man had in the meanwhile come for-
ward to continue and vastly improve upon the sort of
work attempted by Tutchin as an independent journal-
ist. Daniel Defoe, born in 1661, had written much
besides ' The True-born Englishman ' before his
' Shortest Way with Dissenters,' published in 1702 —
and, before its satire was understood, welcomed by the
Tories — caused him to be put in the pillory and locked
up for nearly two years in Newgate ; but it was his
imprisonment that started him in journalism. During
the first six months in which he followed his new
calling, indeed, the work was actually done in his New-
gate cell.

The first number of ' A Weekly Review of the
Affairs of France, purged from the Errors and Partiality
of News-writers and Petty Statesmen of all Sides,'
appeared as an eight-page quarto on February 19, 1704.
With the fifth number it was reduced to a four-page
paper, printed in smaller type, and with the seventh it
began to be issued twice a week. Before the end of
the year the issues were increased to three a week, with
monthly supplements, and the title — altered to ' A Re-
view of the Affairs of France, with some Observations
on Transactions at Home,' on February 27, 1705 — was
again altered to ' A Review of the State of the English
Nation/ on January 1, 1706. Under the latter title it
was carried on without further change till May 1713,
when Defoe, once more imprisoned, abandoned it, to
find plenty of occupation in other ways after his re-
lease and until his death in 1731. During its nine

' Knight Hunt, vol. i. p. 173 ; Andrews, vol. i. pp. 97, 98.

1704-1713. DANIEL DEFOE AND HIS ' REVIEW ' 63

years' run, however, his ' Review ' revolutionised Eng-
lisli journalism.

Even from tlie first Defoe only in part discussed
* tlie affairs of France ' in his clever paper. Affairs in
general were his theme, though he found special matter
for comment in the foreign complications with which
his country was then burdened. Wlien he spoke of
France and past or distant occurrences, his allusions
were mainly to England or to the wars it was engaged
in, and to other matters near and present. ' This
paper,' he said in his opening paragraph, ' is the foun-
dation of a large and very useful design, which, if it
meet with suitable encouragement, permissu superiorum,
may contribute to setting the affairs of Europe in a
clearer light, and to prevent the various uncertain
accounts and the partial reflections of our street scrib-
blers, who daily and monthly amuse mankind with
stories of great victories when we are beaten, miracles
when we conquer, and a multitude of unaccountable
and inconsistent stories which have at least this effect,
that people are possessed with wrong notions of things,
and nations wheedled to believe nonsense and contra-
dictions.'

It was a better sort of journalism that Defoe under-
took to introduce, a journalism that would be critical
and instructive, exposing foUies and falsehoods, en-
forcing truths, and elucidating principles. 'Not,' he
explained, ' that the author thinks it worth while to
take up your hours always to tell you how your pockets
are picked and your senses imposed upon ; only now
and then when 'tis a little grosser than ordinary.' In his
second number Defoe introduced a ' Mercure Scandale,
or advice from the Scandalous Club, being a weekly
history of nonsense, impertinence, vice, and debauchery.'
This, filling a third or half of each number, was a

64 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. hi,

satirical commentary on such occurrences of the day
and such social tendencies as seemed to him especially
absurd or obnoxious, necessary to be laughed at or
severely blamed, and it frequently and freely found fault
with the statements and opinions given in such con-
temporary papers as ' The Postman ' and ' The Flying
Post.' For the rest, Defoe's articles, generally one in
each number, were grave yet abundantly humorous
essays on questions of immediate moment, whether
dealing with passing events or with their general bear-
ings, causes, or eifects, and w^hether connected -with
politics, religion, trade, or any other phase or depart-
ment of human conduct. At first he paid most atten-
tion to the European war, and was a zealous advocate
(XVf peace ; then he argued persistently in favour of the
/^raiion between England and Scotland ; and after that he
^paid particular attention to commercial affairs and was
((^ pioneer of free trade. ' I saw,' he said in the preface
to his third yearly volume, ' a parcel of people caballing
together to rum property, corrupt the laws, invade the
government, debauch the people, and enslave and em-
broil the nation ; and I cried " Fire ! " — or rather
I cried " Water ! " for the fire was begun already. I
saw all the nation running into confusion and directly
flying in the face of one another, and cried out " Peace ! "
I called upon all sorts of people that had any senses to
collect them together and judge for themselves what
they were gomg to do.' Those sentences, written in
1706, express the purpose and the effort, and indicate
the manner and the method of ' A Review ' before Defoe
allowed himself to become a tool of the Tories. It was
not, strictly speaking, a newspaper, but it contained
much better journalism than there had been in England
before, not matched by anything of the same kind aimed
at by his contemporaries, and, due allowances being

1704-1713. DEFOE'S WORK AS A JOURNALIST 65

made for the man and his times, not often surpassed by
any who have followed him-^

Unfortunately, though Defoe evidently began his
newspaper work as an honest politician, and may have
convinced himself all along that he was honest and only
doing his best and utmost to advance the interests of
his country, he came to be very much of a timeserver.
Set in the pillory in 1702 for enraging the Tories by
language so outspoken that it enraged many Whigs as
well, and too independent all through his life to be
much liked by any party or any leader, he thought it
politic, better for himself and perhaps better for the
country, to adapt himself to the varying conditions of
the ugly society in which he moved. He sided to some
extent now with Tories, now with Whigs, and now with
Tories again, according as the one or the other party
was in the ascendant. As he said, frankly and cyni-
cally, ' It occurred to me, as a principle for my conduct,
that it was not material to me what ministers her
majesty was pleased to employ : my duty was to go
along with every ministry, so far as they did not break
in upon the constitution and the laws and liberty of
my country ; my part being only the duty of a subject,
viz., to submit to all lawful commands, and to enter
into no service which was not justifiable by the laws ;
to all which I have exactly obliged myself.' ^

While Defoe's ' Review ' was instructing many readers
and offending many, newspaper enterprise in more
commonplace lines was progressing. A step forward
was made on March 11, 1702, three days after Queen

1 Dunton, who praised smaller men more lavishly, says of Defoe that
he ' is a man of good parts and very clear sense. His oonyeraation is in-
genious and brisk enough.' — Life and Errors, p. 239. That was in 1705,
however, when A Review had been only just started.

^ Defoe, An Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715). We sliall see more
of Defoe's policy, or weakness, in the next chapter.

VOL. I. F

66 OUTCOME OF THE KE VOLUTION ch. in.

Anne's accession, when ' The Daily Courant,' the first
English daily paper, appeared, giving on a single folio
page six short paragraphs of news translated from ' The
Harlem Courant,' one from ' The Amsterdam Courant,'
and three from ' The Paris Gazette,' followed by this
advertisement : ' It will be found from the foreign prints
which from time to time, as occasion offers, will be
mentioned in this paper, that the author has taken
care to be duly furnished with all that comes from
abroad in any language. And, for an assurance that
he will not, under pretence of having private intelli-
gence, impose any additions of feigned circumstances to
an action, but give his extracts fairly and impartially,
at the beginning of each article he will quote the
foreign paper from whence 'tis taken, that the pubhc,
seeing from what country a piece of news comes with
the allowance of that government, may be better able
to judge of the credibility and fairness of the relation.
Nor will he take upon him to give any comments or
conjectures of his own, but will relate only matter of
fact, supposing other people to have sense enough to
make reflections for themselves.' Here was a sneer at
the contemporaries who, in the interests of the Whig,
Tory, or other factions with which they sympathised,
were getting more and more into the way of ' making
reflections ' in the course of their news-reporting, even
where they did not write leading articles or essays
like Tutchin and Defoe. ' This " Courant," as the title
shows,' it was added, ' will be published daily, being
designed to give all the material news as soon as every
post, arrives, and is confined to half the compass, to
save the public at least half the impertinences, of ordi-
nary newspapers.'

This modest forerunner of ' The Times ' was issued
by a bookseller named Mallet, 'next door to the King's

1702. THE FIRST DAILY PAPER 67

Arms Tavern, at Fleet Bridge,' and without advance
on its original plan till April 22, when, doubled in
quantity of matter by the filling up of the hitherto
blank second page with news and advertisements, it
bore the imprint of Samuel Buckley, ' at the sign of
the Dolphin, in Little Britaia.' Buckley was one of the
most successful of the old tradesmen in news. ' He
was originally a bookseller,' we are told, ' but follows
printing. He is an excellent linguist, understands the
Latin, French, Dutch, and Italian tongues, and is
master of a great deal of wit. I hear he translates out
■of the foreign papers himself' ^ He was now owner of
a primitive magazine, ' The Monthly Register,' was soon
to be Steele's and Addison's publisher for ' The Spec-
tator,' and only gave up ' The Daily Courant ' in 1714
to take charge of ' The London Gazette.' ^

Several other new papers were started in Queen
Anne's reign, to compete more or less skilfully and
profitably with those which had survived from the
crowd begun in the almost unfettered days of WilUam
IIL One was ' The Evening Post,' which had short
life in 1706, but was revived more auspiciously on
September 6, 1709, partly to give special prominence
to English news, seeing, as the editor said in his first
number, that ' we read more of our affairs in the
Dutch papers than in any of our own.' That remark
applied to serious matters. Of scandalous gossip there
was more than enough ; and Defoe's ' Review ' had pro-
duced several imitators in the way of satire and criti-
cism, though chiefly in different styles, and themselves

' Dunton, Life and Errors.

^ Besides the penny edition of the Courant, there was another. The
number for September 21, 1705, announces that ' the news of every post-
day's Gourant is constantly printed with the news of the day before on a
sheet of writing paper, a blank being left for the convenienoy of sending
it by the post, and may be had for 2d.'

F 2

68 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. iir,

differing, from that used by him. In 1709 there were
eighteen separate papers published in London, issuing
in all thirty-five numbers every week ; and there was
some excuse for the clever device of a fresh money-
grubber who on September 27, to some extent an-
ticipating the modern ' Public Opinion,' started ' The
General Postscript, being an Extract of all that is most
material from the Foreign and English Newspapers, with
Remarks upon the " Observator," "Review," " Tatlers,'^
and the Rest of the Scribblers, in a Dialogue between
Novel and Scandal.'

A list, with satirical notes, printed in the first
number of that miscellany, helps us to see what was
the journalistic provision offered to Londoners at
breakfast-time or supper-time on each day of the week
in the autumn of 1709. Besides ' The Daily Courant,'
conducted by Buckley, here described as ' Socinus
Editor, a Modern Whig,' which of course appeared
every morning, there was ' The London Gazette ' on
Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, said by another writer
to be ' the truest and most cautious of all the gazettes
I know ; it inserts no news but what is certain, and
often waits for the confirmation of it before it pub-
lishes it.' ^ There also appeared ' The Supplement,' an
alternate edition of ' The Postboy,' 'by Jacobus Abellius,.
a postscriptorian,' otherwise Boyer ; ' The General Re-
mark,' ' by the most learned and laborious Pavius,
projector and operator extraordinaiy ; ' ' The Female
Tatler,' ' by Scandalosissima Scoundreha and her two
natural brothers ; ' and ' The General Postscript,' whose
editor called himself ' Novellus Scandalus, an ubi-
quitarian,' — all on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday;
and ' The British Apollo,' ' by a society of gentlemen

' Misson, quoted by Mr. Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen
Anne, vol. ii. p. 66.

1709. PAPERS IN QUEEN ANNE'S DAY 69

■consisting of Abednego Simpleton only,' on Monday-
alone. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday,
^ The Postman,' ' by M. Hugonotius Politicus Gallo-
Anglicus, a spiteful commentator,' otherwise Fonvive,
Boyer's ' Postboy,' and ' The Flying Post,' still edited
by Jiidpath, or ' Scotus Fanaticus,' tripped one another
up in the morning ; while the evening rivals were
' The Evening Post,' ' by Compositus Fatuus, a de-
facer of languages,' and ' The Postboy Junior,' another
venture of Boyer's ; and ' The City Intelligencer,' ' by
Mr. Nibble-news, a paragrapharian,' catered particu-
larly for commercial readers. On Tuesday, Thursday,
and Saturday also, Defoe, ' Verbosus Enthusiasticus, a
modernist,' brought out his ' Review,' with which on
the same days competed the young ' Tatler,' ' by
Scriptor Furiosus, a supermtendent and court intelli-
gencer,' otherwise Eichard Steele, ' The Eehearsal
Revived,' ' by Agitatus Maximus, an antediluvian,' and
' The Whisperer,' ' by Mrs. Jenny Frivolous, a near
relation to Jacobus Abellius, the postscriptorian.' And
besides aU these papers there was a new series of ' The
Observator,' now conducted by Ridpath as a successor
to Tutchin, which appeared every Wednesday and
Saturday. Thus there were six distinct publications
to read or choose from on Monday, twelve on Tuesday,
six on Wednesday, twelve on Thursday, six on Friday,
and thirteen on Saturday. In addition to these were
some smaller papers, ' Dawks's News-letter,' posted
■every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evening for a
subscription of thirty shilliags a quarter, and Dyer's
and other written news-letters.

About journalism in his day Addison made some
amusing remarks in 1709, the year, it may be noted,
in which the victory at Malplaquet promised to bring
to an early close Marlborough's long campaigning and

70 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. nu

the stream of war news that gave the journalists plentj
to write about. ' That,' he said, 'is the ingenious fra-
ternity of which I have the honour to be an unworthy-
member : I mean the news-writers of Great Britain,
whether Postmen or Postboys, or hj what other name
or title so ever dignified or distinguished. The case of
these gentlemen is, I think, more hard than that of the
soldiers, considering they have taken more towns and
fought more battles. They have been upon parties and
skirmishes where our armies have lain still, and given
the general assault to many a place when the besiegers
were quiet in their trenches. They have made us
masters of several strong towns many weeks before
our generals could do it, and completed victories when
our greatest captains have been content to come oflT
with a drawn battle. Where Prince Eugene has slain
his thousands, Boyer has slain his ten thousands. This
gentleman can, indeed, be never enough commended for
his courage and intrepidity during the whole war. He
has laid about him with an inexpressible ftiry, and, like
the oifended Marius of ancient Rome, made such havoc
among his countrymen as must be the work of two or
three ages to repair. It must be confessed, the re-
doubted Mr. Buckley has shed as much blood as the-
former, but I cannot forbear saying (and I hope it
will not look like envy) that we regard our brother
Buckley as a kind of Drawcansir who spares neither
friend nor foe, but generally kills as many of his own
side as the enemy's. It is impossible for this sort of
men to subsist after a peace.^ Every one remembers

' Addison was here almost plagiarising Shirley's mockery of ' news-
makers ' in his Love Tricks, produced in 1625, nearly ninety years before.
' A peace concluded is a great plague upon them, and if the wars hold out
we shall have stores of them,' says Gaspare. ' They are indeed bastards,
not sons of war and true soldiers, whose divine souls I honour. Yet they-
may be called great spirits, too, for their valour is invincible. These, T

1709. ADDISON ON NEWSPAPERS 71

the shifts they were driven to in the reign of King
Charles II., when they cotdd not furnish out a single
paper of news without lighting up a comet in Germany
or a fire in Moscow. There scarce appeared a letter
without a paragraph on an earthquake. Prodigies were
grown so familiar that they had lost their name, as a
great poet of that age has it. I remember Mr. Dyer,
who is justly looked upon by all fox-hunters in the
nation as the greatest statesman our country has pro-
duced, was particularly famous for dealing in whales,
insomuch that in five months' time (for I had the
curiosity to examine his letters on that occasion) he
brought three into the mouth of the river Thames,
besides two porpoises and a sturgeon. The judicious
and wary Mr. Ichabod Dawks hath all along been the
rival of this great writer, and got himself a reputation
from plagues and famines, by which in those days he
destroyed as great multitudes as he had lately done by
the sword. In every dearth of news, Grand Cairo was
sure to be unpeopled.' ^

That clever skit, if not Addison's first exploit in
journalism, was his first contribution to ' The Tatler,'
which his friend Steele had begun on April 12, 1709.

Steele, Addison's bosom fiiend till near the end of
the latter's life, was, like him, now thirty-five years old.
He had in May 1707 been, appointed gazetteer or re-
sponsible editor of ' The London Gazette,' with a salary
'of 60^. a year, which was soon increased to 300^., and

say, will write you a battle in any part of Europe at an hour's warning,
and yet never set foot out of a tavern ; describe you towns, fortifications,
leaders, the strength of the enemy, what confederates, every day's inarch.
Not a soldier shall lose a hair, or have a bullet fly between his amis, but
he shall have a page to wait on him in quarto. Nothing destroys them
but want of a good memory, for if they escape contradiction they may be
chronicled.' At which Antonio exclaims, ' Oh, brave trade ! '
' The Tatler, May 21, 1709.

72 OUTCOME OF THE DEVOLUTION ch. m.

Ms income from other sources raised the total to at
least 1,000Z., which placed him in a far more comfort-
able position than any of the regular journalists could
boast of. His duties as gazetteer were not onerous ?
and, occupied with other literary and various concerns,
he appears at this time to have taken no more interest
in party politics than was necessary to his station as a
friend and favourite of the men in power, and especially
of Robert Harley, then chief secretary of state, and
afterwards Earl of Oxford. This was the day of new
journalistic ventures, however, and Steele's aptitude for
such work inclined him to start one, partly, but only
in part, on the lines of Defoe's ' Review,' and in com-
petition with such other papers already in the field
as the revived ' Observator ' and ' The British Apollo,
or Curious Amusements for the Ingenious, to which
are added the most material occurrences, foreign and
domestic, performed by a society of gentlemen ' — this
last being a scurrilous sheet that had been started in
February 1708. Hence ' The Tatler.'

^ ' Though the other papers which are published for
the use of the good people of England,' Steele wrote
in his first number, ' have certainly very wholesome
effects, and are laudable in their particular kinds, they
do not seem to come up to the main design of such
narrations, which I humbly presume should be princi-
pally intended for the use of politic persons who are so
public- spirited as to neglect their own affairs to look
into transactions of state. It is both a charitable and
necessary work,' he added, ' to offer something whereby
worthy and well- affected members of the community
may be instructed, after their reading, what to think ;
which shall be the end and purpose of this paper,
wherein I shall, from time to time, report and consider
all matters of whatsoever kind that shall occur to me.'

1709-1711. STEELE AND 'THE TATLER 73

Steele's evident intention was that ' The Tatler ' should
be a critical newspaper, oiFering more criticism than
news, discussing all sorts of questions, whether political
or not, and dealing with political matters in an im-
partial spirit and without sympathy for those political
gamblers and office-seekers, of either party, of whom
he said, in a later number, ' We have a contempt for
such paltry barterers, and have, therefore, all along in-
formed the public that we intend to give them our
advices for our own sakes, and are labouring to make
our lucubrations come to some price in money, for our
more convenient support in the service of the public'

In the earlier numbers of ' The Tatler,' nearly all
written by Steele, but under Swift's pseudonym of
Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., and purporting to give wise
and kindly tittle-tattle of various sorts from various
centres, due attention was paid to politics in the section
dated from St. James's Coffee-house. Touching this
section it was even said, by way of a joke, in the pre-
liminary announcement, ' I desire all persons to consider
that I am at a very great charge for proper materials
for the work, as well as that, before I resolved on it, I
had settled a correspondence in all parts of the known
and knowing world.' Gradually, however, politics
dropped out of the paper, perhaps under the influence
of Addison, who was in Ireland when ' The Tatler ' was
started, and only discovered that it was Steele's by the
style of writing, but who, even before his return to Lon-
don, gave great assistance to his friend, and began to write
for it after the eighteenth number. With the eighty-
third number it became entirely non-political, hence-
forth discussing only social, literary, and miscellaneous
subjects, on the plan that was soon to be continued in
' The Spectator.'

Keceivins: a little help from Swift, Congreve, and

74 OUTCOME OF THE EE VOLUTION ch. m..

other friends, and following Defoe witli more gracious-
ness in their humour, Steele and Addison put into-
' The Tatler ' a genial healthy spirit which delighted
the reading public ; some of whom were also delighted
with the examples of base rivalry and spurious imita-
tion it provoked. Mrs. Manley learnt to be a trenchant
journalist by her practice as ' Mrs. Crackeiathorpe ' in
' The Female Tatler ' which began to appear on July 8,
1709 ; and ' The Whisperer' was quite as scurrilous an
outcome of female journalism in Queen Anne's day.-^

It is not pleasant to find Defoe classed with Mrs.
Manley, but we need not be surprised that the grand
jury of Middlesex should have sent up this present-
ment on October 15 : ' Great numbers of printed papers-,
are continually dispersed in and about this city, under
the names of " The Female Tatler," sold by A. Bald-
win, the " Review of the British Nation," and other
papers under other titles (the authors and printers of
which are unknown to the jury), which, under feigned
names, by describing persons, and by placing the first
and last letters of the words and otherwise, do reflect
on and scandalously abuse several persons of honour
and quality, many of the magistrates, and abundance of
citizens, and all sorts of people ; which practice we
conceive to be a great nuisance, does manifestly tend to

' Women were printers and publishers, as well as newspaper writers
at this time. Dunton said of Mrs. Tacy Sowle, ' She is both a printer as
well as a bookseller, and the daughter of one, and understands the trade
very well, being a good compositor herself. Her love and piety to her
aged mother is eminently remarkable, even to that degree that she keeps
herself unmarried for this only reason (as I have been informed), that it
may not be out of her power to let her mother have always the chief com-
mand in her house. I have known this eminent Quaker for many years,
have been graciously treated at her house, and must do her the justice
to say I believe her a conscientious person.' He also speaks of Mrs. Eliza-
beth Harris as ' the beautiful relict of my worthy friend, Mr. John Harris.
She printed my Panegyric on the Lord Jeffreys, and other copies, that sold,
well.'— ii/e and Errors, pp. 300. 301.

1709-1711. 'THE TATLEE' AND ITS RIVALS 7&

the disturbance of the public peace, and may turn to
the damage, if not ruin, of many families if not pre-
vented. We, therefore, humbly hope this honourable
court will take such effectual care to prevent these
abuses as to their great wisdom shall seem meet.' ^
' We hear,' said ' The British Apollo,' itself a bold
offender, ' that my Lord Chief Justice and the whole
court were highly satisfied with this presentment.''
But nothing came of it. Mrs. Manley was in too inti-
mate relations with some powerful Tories, and too
serviceable to their party, for any prosecution of her ta
be approved of. Proceedings against her were com-
menced in November, but she was bailed out, and not
afterwards interfered with.

Whatever little persecution was then possible was-
reserved for the Whigs. Steele's old patron, Harley,
being now a Tory, and with Henry St. John, soon ta
be Lord Bolingbroke, at the head of public affairs,
Steele was in 1710 deprived of his gazetteership, the
excuse being that Harley had been satirised iinder cover
of a dramatic criticism in No. 193 of ' The Tatler,' the-
mildest and best-mannered of all the papers pubhshed
at this time. ' The Tatler ' itself came to an end with
its No. 271, on January 2, 1711, not because of perse-
cution or any falling off in its popularity, but because-
Steele and Addison were preparing to issue in lieu of it
a more ambitious and altogether non-poHtical journal.
'The Spectator' began on March 1, 1711, and was-
continued every week-day without interruption until
December 6, 1712. As it was in no sense a newspaper,
however, only a varied and instructive series of short:
essays issued in daUy pennyworths, it hardly here con-
cerns us, except in so far as it now and then com-
mented pleasantly on one or other of its rivals or the-

* Andrews, British Journalism, vol. i. p. 114.

76 OUTCOME OJF THE REVOLUTION. oh. hi.

news-reading tastes of the public. A- more important
event in newspaper history was the appearance, on
August 3, 1710, of ' The Examiner, or Remarks upon
Papers and Occurrences.'

This was the earliest of an inharmonious group of
papers which, with much ability and more acrimony,
carried on a fierce political war during the closing
years of Queen Anne's reign. Developing and syste-
matising the crude plan of L'Estrange's ' Observator '
of thirty years before, which Defoe in his ' Review '
and others had improved upon, it was, with the

- exception of L'Estrange's ' Observator^' the first
attempt at a distinct and inspired muiisterial organ,

4)ropounding the opinions that the government of the
day wished the public to hold with as much authority
as had hitherto been, and still was, shown in the state-
ment, through ' The London Gazette,' of facts that the
government of the day wished the public to believe
and be satisfied with. Prompted and guided by St.
John, the chief secretary of state, who himself wrote
some of its articles, its editor was Dr. WUliam King,
Steele's successor in the gazetteership, a smart writer of
verse and prose, a skilful jurist, and a notorious de-
bauchee. Its chief writers at starting were Matthew
Prior, the poet and diplomatist, who had gone over with
his patrons from the Whig to the Tory side, and Dr.
Francis Atterbury, afterwards the bishop of Rochester
who was sent to the Tower for his High Church and
Jacobite partisanship. ' The Examiner,' as Addison said
five years later, with bias but not inaccurately, ' was the
favourite work of the party. It was ushered into the
world by a letter from a secretary of state, setting
forth the great genius of the author, the usefulness of
his design, and the mighty consequences that were to be
expected from it. It is said to have been written by

1710. 'THE EXAMINER' AND ITS OPPONENTS 7T

those among them whom they looked upon as their
most celebrated wits and politicians, and was dispersed
into all quarters of the nation with great industry and
expense. Who would not have expected that at least
the rules of decency and candour would be observed in
such a performance ? But, instead of this, you saw all
the great men, who had done eminent services to their
country but a few years before, drafted out one by one
and baited in their turn. No sanctity of character or-
privilege of sex exempted persons from this barbarous
usage. Several of our prelates were the standing
marks of public raillery, and many ladies of the first
quality branded by name for matters of fact which, as
they were false, were not heeded, and, if they had been true,
were innocent. The dead themselves were not spared.' ^
' I see the town every day imposed upon,' it was
stated in the first number of ' The Examiner ' itself,
' by false wit, false learning, false politics, and false
divinity ' ; and, the other papers being so grievously at
fault, ' some of these papers I intend to examine and
set people right in their opinions.' As the Whigs
considered that people were in danger of being set
wrong in their opinions by this Tory organ, they
started on September 14, when it was six weeks old,
' The Whig Examiner,' ' to give all persons a re-hearing
who have suffered under any unjust sentence of " The
Examiner,"' and pausing in his less boisterous work
for ' The Tatler,' Addison wrote most or all of its ar-
ticles. ' The Whig Examiner ' lived through only foui*
numbers, however, and its place was taken by ' The
Medley,' which was begun on October 5, with Addison
as one of its contributors ; other contributors being
Steele, Oldmixon,^ Dean Kennet, afterwards bishop of

' Tlie Freeholder, February 24, 1716.

'^ Oldmixon says, in his querulous Memoirs of the Press from 1710 ?»

78 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION. ch. m.

Peterborough, and Samuel Grarth, the famous physician,
besides the editor Arthur Maynwaring, "who appears to
have written most of its articles, with more solidity than
wit, until it was merged in some way with ' The Flying
Post,' stUl conducted and expanded as a political news-
paper by Ridpath. Steele and Addison, the best writers
•on the Whig side, were not at their best in political
controversy, and they were no match for their old
associate, now their bitter enemy, Jonathan Swift.

Swift, who had been pushing his way in London off
and on during several years, joined the staff of ' The
Examiner ' on November 2, when thirteen numbers had
appeared, and put plenty of vigour into the next thirty -
three, being the great apologist of the Tories in its
■columns till June 14, 1711, when his place was taken by
Mrs. Manley. He retired, he said, because he could no
longer be anonymous, and because the enmities he had
provoked made his Ufe unbearable, and even rendered it
dangerous for him to go about after dark. ' No, no,'
he wrote to Stella, ' I'll walk late no more ; I ousrht to
venture it less than other people, and so I was told.' ^
' Those little barking pens,' he said in his last ' Examiner '
article, ' which have so constantly pursued me I take to
be of no further consequence to what I have writ than
the scoffing slaves of old placed behind the chariot to
put the general in mind of his mortality, which was but
a thing of form, and made no stop or disturbance in the
show. However, if these perpetual snarlers against me
had the same design, I must own they have effectually
compassed it, since nothing can or will be more mortify-
ing than to reflect that I am of the same species with

1740 (p. 13), that for his work on The, Medley he was promised 1001. down
and a salary of 1001. a, year ; ' but alas ! that emolument I heard of, but
never received.'

' Swift, Journal, June 30, 1711.

1710-1711. SWIFT'S WORK ON ' THE EXAMINER ' 79

■creatures capable of uttering so much scurrility, dul-
ness, falsehood, and impertinence, to the scandal and
disgrace of human nature.'

Not in dulness, but in some of the other faults he com-
plained of. Swift was at least on a par with most of his
opponents, and if he was surpassed in any or all of them,
it was chiefly by writers on his own side. In so far as
there was less ribaldry in the newspapers and magazines
of 1712 and the two or three previous years, than there
had been in 1709 and earlier, this was due to the good
work of Steele and Addison in ' The Tatler ' and ' The
Spectator,' and to the efi"orts of some others to follow
their example. In politics licence had sunk to licen-
tiousness, and all the present gain from recent progress
in pohtical journalism was marred by the outrageous
coarseness indulged in by those who made it their trade.
If Mrs. Manley no longer poured out her malicious and
scandalous trivialities in ' The Female Tatler,' it was
a doubtful benefit that she should be free to exaggerate
Swift's vices of style in ' The Examiner.'

Swift, leaving ' The Examiner,' or perhaps stUl
secretly writing for it from time to time, did not
abandon journaUsm, and he came to be the special
object of attack by writers to whom he had given
lessons in scurrihty and vituperation, but whom he could
not convert to Toryism. On these he revenged himself as
far as he could. It was apparently by his advice that
several printers, publishers, and editors, writers in ' The
Protestant Postboy,' a new paper, ' The Flying Post,'
' The Medley,' and other journals, fourteen men in
all, were sent to Newgate in the course of 1711.^ 'A
rogue that writes a newspaper called " The Protestant
Postboy," ' he wrote to Stella on October 10 in that
year, ' has reflected on me in one of his papers, but the

' Andrews, British Journalism, vol. i. p. 106.

80 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION. ch. nr.

secretary has taken him up, and he shall have a squeeze
extraordinary. He says that " an ambitious tantivy,
missing his towering hopes of preferment in Ireland, is
come over to vent his spleen on the late ministry," &c.
I'll tantivy him with a vengeance ! ' In another letter
he complained : ' These devils of Grrub Street rogues that
write " The Flying Post " and " Medley " in one paper
will not be quiet. They are always mauling the lord
treasurer, Lord Bolingbrolce, and nie. We have the
dog under prosecution, but Bolingbroke is not active
enough. But I hope to swinge him. He is a Scotch
rogue, one Ridpath.' Again : ' One Boyer, a French
dog, has abused me in a pamphlet, and I have got him
up in a messenger's hands. The Secretary promised
me to swinge him. I must make that rogue an example
to others.'

The secretary of state here referred to, Henry St.
John, Lord Bolingbroke, was mainly responsible for
the proposal to impose a tax on newspapers, ostensibly
as a means of increasing the revenue, but really as an
unwise attempt to interfere with the liberty of the press,
which was acted upon in 1712, and talked about more
than a year before. ' They are here intending,' Swift
wrote on January 31, 1711, 'to tax all little printed
papers a halfpenny every half-sheet, which will utterly
ruin Grub Street, and I am endeavouring to prevent it.'
Swift's endeavours appear to have been in the other
direction ; but, with or without his approval, the busi-
ness was postponed for twelve months. At length in
her message to parliament in February 1712, Queen Anne
complained of ' the false and scandalous libels, such as
are a reproach to any government,' which were then
plentiful, so that ' by seditious papers and factious
rumours, designing men have been able to sink credit
and the innocent have suffered,' and she invited it ' to

1712. THE FIRST NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTY 81

find a remedy equal to the mischief.' The House of
Commons, loyally deploring this ' abuse of the liberty
of the press,' promised to curb it, and, after some delay
and some altercation, it was decided that the most
' effectual way for suppressing libels ' would be ' the
laying a great duty on all newspapers and pamphlets.'

That was done, not openly, but by some clauses that
the ministers smuggled into an Act of Parliament, passed
on June 10, 1712, which was chiefly concerned with the
duties to be raised on soaps, silks, calicoes, linens, and
other articles. By this act, which was to come into force
on August 1, and to last for thirty-two years, ' all
newspapers, or papers contaiaing public news, intelli-
gence, or occurrences,' were to be taxed at the rate of a
hal^enny apiece, if priuted on half a sheet of paper or
less, or a penny if on a whole sheet and not more, and
of two shillings a sheet if of larger size. A tax of a
shilling was also imposed on every advertisement ap-
pearing in ' any printed paper, such paper being dis-
pensed or made public weekly or oftener.' ^

' This is the day,' Addison wrote ia ' The Spectator '
of July 31, 'on which many eminent authors will pro-
bably publish then' last words. I am afraid that few of
our weekly historians, who are men that above all others
delight in war, wUl be able to subsist under the weight
of a stamp and an approaclung peace. A sheet of blank
paper that must have this new imprimatur clapped upon
it before it is qualified to communicate anything to the
pubKc, wUl make its way in the world but very heavily.
In short, the necessity of carrying a stamp and the im-
probabiHty of notifj'^ing a bloody battle will, I am
afraid, both concur to the sinking of those thin folios
which have every other day retailed to us the history
of Europe for several years last past. A facetious friend

I 10 Anne, c. 19, § 101.
VOL. I. G

82 OUTCOIIE OF THE REVOLUTION oh. hi.

of mine, who loves a pun, calls this present mortality
among authors " the fall of the leaf." ' As for ' The
Spectator,' Addison announced that, 'in this great crisis
of the republic of letters, ' after considering whether or
not he should throw up his pen ' as an author that is
cashiered by Act of Parliament,' he and his colleagues
had decided to continue their enterprise, raising the
price from a penny to twopence ; and he added sarcas-
tically, ' I consider that the tax on paper was given for
the support of the government, and, as I have enemies
who are apt to pervert everything I do or say, I fear
they would ascribe the laying down my paper on such
an occasion to a spirit of malcontentedness, which I
am resolved none shall ever justly upbraid me with.
No, I shall glory in contributing my utmost to the
public weal, and if my country receives five or six
pounds a day by my labours, I shall be very well
pleased to find myself so useful a member.'

Swift was more cynical and more gleeful. ' Grub
Street has but ten days to live ; then an Act of Parlia-
ment takes place that ruins it by taxing every half sheet
at a halfpenny,' he wrote to Stella on July 19 ; and on
August 7, ' Do you know that all Grub Street is dead
and gone last week ? No more ghosts or murders now
for love or money. I plied it pretty close the last fort-
night, and published at least seven penny papers of my
own, besides some of other people's, but now every single
half sheet pays a halfpenny to the queen. " The Obser-
vator" is fallen; the " Medleys " are jumbled together
with " The Flying Post" ; " The Examiner" is deadly
sick ; " The Spectator " keeps up and doubles its price —
I know not how long it will hold. Have you seen the
red stamp the papers are marked with ? Methinks the
stamping is worth a halfpenny.'

Grub Street was not ruined, however, by the passing

1712-1714. EFFECTS OF THE STAMP DUTY 83

■of the Stamp Act. Many newspapers and essay-sheets,
especially those of small circulation, were crushed ;
even ' The Spectator,' so far as Steele was concerned in
it, coming to an end on December 6,^ to be revived,
not very successfully, by Addison alone in June 1714,
and then continued through only six months. But
Grub Street remained, and some of the worst habits of
the worst traders in it were strengthened instead of
being weakened through the pretended effort of Lord
Bolingbroke and the Tory party to improve the press
by throwing obstacles in its way. The newspapers
that survived quarrelled with one another, and per-
petrated ' libels ' as freely as heretofore.^ Those

' Steele says in this last number that the tax had ' brought iQto the
Stamp Office, one week with another, above 20J. a week arising from this
single paper, notwithstanding it at first reduced it to less than half the
number that was usually printed before.' Whence we may infer that its
■circulation had fallen from about 3,200 to about 1,600.

" Here, from The Postboy of April 1, 1714, is a sample of the way in
which most journalists abused one another : ' In The Flying Post of last
Tuesday we have a very unusual specimen of the author's modesty in

owning and recanting the lie he had so impudently fixed on Dr. S 1

[Saoheverell] in his former paper. But 'tis very remarkable that, by en-
deavouring to excuse this lie, he unluckily falls into his habitual sin again
no less than three times in this single paragraph. ... So little credit is to
be given to this infamous weekly libel, filled with lies of the author's own
invention, or such as are taken up at second-hand and vouched by him,
without the least regard to truth, common sense, or common honesty.'
Abel Boyer, in The Postboy, claimed to be especially virtuous. In the
number of September 15, 1713, he wrote : ' Last night WUliam Thompson,
Esq., came to the proprietor of this paper, and told him that if he did not
insert the following paragraph in his paper of this day, "God damn him !
he would cut his throat, and he had a penknife in his pocket for that pur-
pose." For which the proprietor of this paper designs to prosecute liim
according to law, but thought fit to publish this that the nation may be
judges whether a person of such a character is proper to be employed
in his station in the law, or whether our constitution ought to be entrusted
in such hands as will not scruple to commit murder whenever it may
serve their purpose.' There was sly humour in some of Tlie Postboy's
paragraphs. Thus we are told on January 29, 1713, that ' on Monday last
that facetious and merty gentleman in the pulpit, Mr. Daniel Burgess,
departed this life, to the great mortification of liis female auditors.'

a 2

84 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. in.

journalists wlio dabbled in politics wrote for party-
ends, and seldom shrank from taking bribes for what
tbey penned in worthless praise of friends or gross
abuse of opponents, unless they were influential or
ambitious enough to aspire to office instead of looking
for crowns or guineas in ready money ; and those who
shunned politics were apt only to make almost baser
use of their talents, such as these were, in dishing up
stale or false scandal for the entertainment of a gaping
public. There were, as we shall see, some honourable
exceptions in the last years of Queen Anne's reign,
and in George I.'s, but the press, merely crippled and
irritated for a whUe by the imposition of the stamp
duty, got a worse name than it had before, and deserved
it. It grew ; but its growth for a time, and a long
time, was crooked. Though it gave more news than
formerly, the news, even when it purported to be about
matters of serious importance, was often garbled and
trumped up.

Addison, who laughed and grieved over this state
of things, attributed it to its right causes, the chief of
which he found to be ' that eternal thirst which is the
portion of all our modern newsmongers and coffee-
house politicians.' ' You must have observed,' he said,
' that men who frequent coffee-houses and delight in
news are pleased with everything that is matter of fact,
so it be what they have not heard before. A victory
or a defeat is equally agreeable to them. The shutting
of a cardinal's mouth pleases them one post, and the
opening of it another. They are glad to hear the
French court is removed to Marli, and are afterwards
as much delighted with its return to Versailles. They
read the advertisements with the same curiosity as
the articles of public news, and are as pleased to hear
of a piebald horse that is strayed out of a field near

1712. ADDISON ON THE THIE^T FOB NEWS 85

Islington as of a whole troop that has been engaged in
any foreign adventure. In short, they have a relish
for everything that is news, let the matter of it be what
it will, or to speak more properly, they are men of a
voracious appetite but no taste.' ' There is no humour
in my countrymen which I am more inclined to wonder
at than their general thirst after news. There are
about half a dozen ingenious men who live very plenti-
fully upon this curiosity of their fellow- subjects. They
all of them receive the same advices from abroad, and
very often in the same words, but their way of cooking
it is so different that there is no citizen who has an eye
to the public good that can leave the coffee-house with
peace of mind before he has given every one of them a
reading. These several dishes of news are so very
agreeable to the palate of my countrymen that they are
not only pleased with them when they are served up
hot, but when they are again set cold before them by
those penetrating politicians who oblige the pubHc with
their reflections and observations upon every piece of
intelligence that is sent us from abroad. The text is
given us by one set of writers, and the comment by
another.' ^

The gracious moralist of ' The Spectator ' was content
to make fun of the news-lovers and their tradesmen
so long as the news itself was harmless, but about
the harmful matter that abounded in the newspapers
he used stronger language. ' Our satire,' he said, ' is
nothing but ribaldry and BUlingsgate. Scurrility passes
for wit, and he who can call names in the greatest
variety of phrases is looked upon to have the shrewdest
pen. By this means the honour of families is ruined,
the highest posts and greatest titles are rendered cheap
and vUe in the sight of the people, the noblest virtues

' The Spect-ator, August 8, 1712.

86 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. iu.

and most exalted parts exposed to the contempt of the
vicious and the ignorant. Should a foreigner who knows
nothing of our private factions, or one who is to act
his part in the world when our present heats and
animosities are forgot — should, I say, such an one form
to himself a notion of the greatest men of all sides in
the British nation who are now living from the charac-
ters which are given them in some or other of those
abominable writings which are daily pubUshed among^
us, what a nation of monsters must we appear ! ' ^

Here, too, Addison pointed to the main source of
the evil he complained of, and he suggested what he
was sanguine enough to believe its surest remedy.
' That which makes it particularly difficult to restrain
these sons of calumny and defamation is that all sides
are equally guilty of it, and that every dirty scribbler
is countenanced by great names, whose interests he
propagates by such vile and infamous methods. I have
never yet heard of a ministry who have inflicted an
exemplary punishment on an author that has supported
their cause with falsehood and scandal, and treated in a
most cruel manner the names of those who have been
looked upon as their rivals and antagonists. Would a
government set an everlasting mark of their displeasure
upon one of those infamous writers who makes his court
to them by tearing to pieces the reputation of a com-
petitor, we should quickly see an end put to this race
of vermin that are a scandal to government and a re-
proach to human nature. Such a proceeding would
make a minister of state shine in history, and would
fill all mankind with a just abhorrence of persons who-
should treat him unworthily and employ against him
those arms which he scorned to make use of against his

enemies.' ^

The Spedatm; August 7, 1712.
Ibid.

1712-1713. JOUENALISM UNDER BOLINGBEOKE 87

Those who were ministers of state when Addison
wrote thus were in no mood to shine in history, or in
their own day, by help of such pohcy as he recom-
mended. Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, and
Eobert Harley, Earl of Oxford, not too kindly disposed
towards one another, were the men in power, and,
having got rid of the Duke of Marlborough and of some
dangerous young Whigs like Robert Walpole, they
were scheming to obtain lasting authority in England
under the altered conditions incident to the ending of
the War of the Succession abroad and the prospect of a
speedy Hanoverian succession at home. All the news-
papers and political writers that could be bought or
were thought worth buying had to be employed in
forwarding their interests and slandering their enemies,
and the journalists who declined to become dupes or
slaves under Tory guidance might not look for pro-
tection from those in office.

Steele was rather more of a politician than Addison,
and it would seem that one of his reasons for giving
up ' The Spectator' in December 1712 was a desire to
embark in some more serious enterprise, one in which
he should be better able to take part in the journalistic
strife then going on. ' The Guardian,' which he started
as a daily half sheet on March 12, 1713, however,
though soberer in its plan as well as in its title than
his first venture, was not intended to be, any more than
' The Tatler,' a political paper. ' The main purpose of
the work,' he said in the first number, ' shall be to
protect the modest, the industrious ; to celebrate the
wise, the vahant ; to encourage the good, the pious ; to
confront the impudent, the idle ; to contenm the vain,
the cowardly ; and to disappoint the wicked and pro-
fane.' Steele's design was, in the guise of Nestor
Ironside now, as formerly in the guise of Isaac

88 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. iir.

Bickerstaff, and with tlae help of Addison and other
friends, Pope being one of the contributors to 'The
Guardian,' merely to moralise and to influence public
opinion by gentle satire and sly humour, not to criticise
the events of the day or the action of party leaders and
partisans. But he gradually came to the conclusion
that something more was needed. Before seven weeks
were over he found himself engaged in a controversy
with ' The Examiner,' still conducted as a violent Tory
organ, with Swift and Mrs. Manley ^ among its writers ;
and the quarrel grew. At length Steele resolved to
enter boldly into the political arena. He was elected
member of Parliament for Stockbridge in the auturan
of 1713. The last number of ' The Gruardian ' appeared
on October 1, and the first of ' The Englishman ' on
October 6. ' It is not now a time,' he said in the latter,
' to improve the taste of men by the reflections and
railleries of poets and pliilosophers, but to awaken their
understanding by laying before them the present state
of the world like a man of experience and a patriot.
It is a jest to throw away our care in providing for the
palate when the whole body is in danger of death, and
to talk of amending the mien and air of a cripple that
has lost his legs and arms.'

' The Englishman,' published thrice a week till
February 15, 1714, could not, like Steele's earher
papers, be charged with too much mildness and lack of
party spirit. Essays of the old sort often appeared in
it, but as freely as he thought fit, and generally sign-
ing what he wrote with his own name, Steele denounced
in very plain language the conduct of ' my lord,' that
is, of Bolingbroke, and contradicted as plainly the

• ' It is notliing to me,' he said in No. 52, ' whether the Examiner
writes against me in the character of an estranged friend or an exasperated
mistress.'

1713-1714. STEELE AS A POLITICAL JOURNALIST 89

articles written in ' The Examiner ' to excuse or defend
the government by ' your man,' as Swift was here
styled. He also from time to time stated emphatically
the Whig principles of government which were being
subverted by the men in power. On December 17,
1713, for instance, after complaining of the political
disasters then most visible to him, he said : ' I can
attribute the original of aU these misfortunes to nothing
but the ministers, who, to make their court to their
princes, flatter their ambition with the notion of their
being greater than our laws, and that such weak cob-
webs were designed only to tie up the feeble hands of
silly subjects and not those of a mighty monarch ; and
thus, by unjustly endeavouring to make them greater
than the laws have made them (for every Act of
Parliament is a compact between the prince and the
people, and the prince is as much bound by it as the
meanest of his subjects), they make both the prince and
people uneasy, occasion jealousies and distrusts one of
the other, and, when once the mutual confidence is
broken between the prince and his people, the prince
may be taught to think the people do not deserve his
protection and the people to think their liberties worth
defending.'

^That was bold language to use at a time when Queen
Anm s intellect, never too strong, was failing, and her
speedy death was being counted upon, and when des-
perate schemes were on foot, with BoHngbroke's con-
nivance, for overturning the Act of Succession and
placing on the throne the heir of James II. in lieu of
the Princess Sophia or her son, the Elector George
of Hanover. But Steele used more language of this
sort, both in other numbers of ' The Englishman ' —
■especially in its fifty- seventh and last — and in a
pamphlet entitled ' The Crisis,' and he can hardly

90 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. hi.-

have been surprised at being taken to task for it. In
February 1714 the queen complained in the speech with
which she opened parHament that ' there are some who
have arrived to that height of malice as to insinuate that
the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover is in
danger under my government.' What followed is worth
noting.

On March 11 the House of Commons was invited
to take into consideration that part of the queen's
speech, it being alleged by Mr. Auditor Foley ' that
unless means were found to restrain the licentiousness
of the press and to shelter from malicious and scanda-
lous libels those who had the honour to be in the ad-
ministration, they who by their abilities were best
qualified to serve their queen and country would
decline public offices and employments,' and by Sir
William Wyndham, that ' some of Mr. Steele's writings
contained insolent injurious reflections on the queen
herself, and were dictated by the spirit of rebellion.' ' I
think they have begun very unhappily and ungracefally
against me, and I doubt not but God will turn their
malice to the advantage of the innocent,' Steele wrote
to his wife on the same evening ; adding, ' Lord Halifax,
in the House of Lords, told the ministry that he be-
lieved if they would recommend " The Crisis " to her
majesty's perusal she would think quite otherwise of
the book than they do.'

On the following day, March 12, Lord Oxford's
brother, Mr. Auditor Harley, on behalf of the govern-
ment, laid before the Commons a formal complaint
against certain passages in ' The Englishman ' of January
19 and February 11, and in ' The Crisis,' 'all said to be
written by Richard Steele, Esquire,' and Steele was
ordered to attend in his place next morning, he having-
previously kept away by the advice of Lord Halifax,

1714. STEELE ON HIS DEFENCE 91

who, as Mrs. Steele was informed by her husband,
' thought it would be better to have the first attack
made in my absence.'

The next morning was Saturday, and there was ' a
great concourse of members and spectators ' to hear
the obnoxious passages read and discussed, and after
several speakers had ' severely animadverted on the
rancom' and seditious spirit conspicuous in those writ-
ings,' Steele was called upon to answer for himself.
Thereupon he said that, ' being attacked on several
heads without any previous notice, he hoped the house
would allow him at least a week's time to prepare for
his defence.' This was objected to by Foley and Harley,
who were in the position of prosecuting counsel, and
who proposed that the adjournment should be only till
Monday. These men, though High Churchmen now,
had formerly been strict Presbyterians, and had not
lost the canting style of speech and manner acquired in
their younger days. The temptation to ridicule them
was too great for Steele. 'Assuming their sanctified
countenance,' as we are told, he ' owned, in the meek-
ness and contrition of his heart, that he was a very
great sinner, and hoped the member who spoke last,
and who was so justly renowned for his exemplary
piety and devotion, would not be accessory to the accu-
mulating the number of his transgressions by obliging
him to break the Sabbath of the Lord by perusing such
profane writings as might serve for his justification.'
This appeal so amused the house that it sanctioned a
postponement of the business till Thursday.

On that day, the House being cleai'ed of strangers,
with the exception of Addison and a few others per-
mitted to assist in the inquiry, Foley moved that Steele
should be asked whether he acknowledged the passages
objected to. Steele promptly declared that ' he wrote

t)2 OUTCOME OF THE REVOLUTION ch. ni.

and published the said pamphlets, and the several para-
graphs there which had been complained of and read to
the house, with the same cheerfidness and satisfaction
with which he had abjured the Pretender.' Foley then
proposed that Steele should withdraw, but after a hot
debate, he was allowed to remain and make a speech
in his defence, after listening to the arguments of his
assailants. His proposal, however, that each paragraph
should be separately discussed, he being permitted to
rebut the speeches made upon each in turn by a speech
of his own, was overruled, after another debate in which
Eobert Walpole, General Stanhope, Lord Finch, and
others, supported his plea, and it was resolved that ' he
should proceed to make his defence generally upon the
charge given against him.' The ' general ' reply which
he then made lasted nearly three hours. With Addison
sitting near, ' to prompt him. upon occasion,' it is reported,
'he spake to several heads, with such a temper, modesty,
unconcern, easy and manly eloquence, as gave entire
satisfaction to all who were not inveterately prepossessed
against him.'

Then ensued the main debate, in which the great
speech was made by Walpole, ' Why,' asked Walpole,
' is the author answerable in parliament for the things
which he wrote in his private capacity ? And if he is
punishable by law, why is he not left to the law ? By
this mode of proceeding, parliament, which used to be
the scourge only of evil ministers, is made by ministers
the scourge of the subject. The ministers are suffi-
ciently armed with authority ; they possess the great
sanction of rewards and punishments, the disposal of
the privy purse, the grace of pardoning, and the power
of condemning to the pUlory for seditious writings —
powers consistent with, and naturally arising from
their exalted situation, and which they cannot toio

1714. STEELE'S EXPULSION FEOM PARLIAMENT 9S

jealously guard from being perverted to answer indirect
or criminal purposes. In former reigns the audacity of
corruption extended itself only to judges and juries ;
the attempt so to degrade parliament itself was till the
present period unheard of. The liberty of the press is
unrestrained ; how then shall a part of the legislature
dare to punish that as a crime which is not declared to
be so by any law passed by the whole ? And why
should this House be made the instrument of such a
detestable purpose ? ' ^

Neither Walpole's eloquence nor Steele's prevailed.
On the division taken after this memorable debate of
March 18, 1714, the author of the outspoken articles in
' The Englishman ' and ' The Crisis ' was expelled from
the House of Commons by a majority of 245 against
152. No further punishment fell upon him ; but this
was enough to mark the change that had come over the
newspaper world within twenty years of the lapsing
of the Licensing Act, and as one consequence of the
Kevolution of 1688. The crown no longer claimed
the right of openly and directly controlling the press,
but the House of Commons, though it dared do no
more than that, alio we3. itself to be so far the lawless a
tool of the ministers of the crown as to expel from its
body the member who had dared to quarrel with them J
and their agents in print.

1 Parliamentary Sistory, vol. vi. pp. 1265-1268 ; Coxe, Walpole, vol. i.
p. 72 ; Nichols, Epistolary Correspondence of Steele, vol. i. p. 318. ' This,'
says Hallam {Gonstitutional History, chap, xvi.), 'was perhaps the first
instance wherein the House of Commons so identified itself with the
executive administration, independently of the sovereign's person, as to
consider itself libelled by those who impugned its measures.' It is signi-
ficant of the variation in political progress that a few weeks before the
House of Commons expelled Steele for writing against the Tories, the
House of Lords— more Whig than Tory — had censured the printer and
publisher of The Public Spirit of the Whigs, for the writing of which Lord
Oxford had secretly paid Swift lOOJ.

94 OUTCOME OP THE REVOLUTION ch. hi

A pretty incident occurred in the course of the
debating on Steele's case. One of his supporters was
Lord Finch, son of the Earl of Nottingham, whose
daughter. Lady Charlotte Finch, had some time be-
fore been slandered by an anonymous writer in ' The
Examiner.' Steele had taken up the cudgels on be-
half of Lady Charlotte in ' The Guardian,' and thereby
won the gratitude of her brother. Lord Finch, at this
time a young member of the House of Commons, rose
with a full heart to protest against Steele's expulsion,
but, ' being embarrassed by an ingenuous modesty and
over-deference to an assembly in which he had not yet
been accustomed to speak, he sat down in a visible con-
fusion.' ' It is strange I can't speak for this man,
though I could readily fight for him,' he murmured.
The words were overheard, and a cry of ' Hear him !
hear him ! ' ran through the house. Lord Finch was
thus induced to rise again, and, it is recorded, ' though
he appeared to have utterly forgot what he rose up to
speak, yet the generous motive which the whole com-
pany knew he acted upon procured him such an
acclamation of voices to hear him, that he expressed
himself with a magnanimity and clearness, proceeding
from the mtegrity of his heart, that he made his very
adversaries receive him as a man they wished their
friend.' ^ So Steele had some reward for his brave
journalism, and some compensation for the troubles it
brought upon him. He had other reward and compen-
sation in the approval of his own conscience. ' It is
not for me,' he remarked on one occasion, ' to say how
I write or speak, but it is for me to say I do both
honestly ; and when I threw away some fame for
letters and politeness to serve the nobler ends of jus-
tice and government, I did not do it with a design to

^ Epistolm-y Correspondence of Steele, vol. i. p. 328.

1714. STEELE'S COMPENSATION 95

be as negligent of what should be said of me with
relation to my interests. No, wit and humour are
the dress and ornament of the mind, but honesty and
"truth are the soul itself.' ^

Having discontinued ' The Englishman,' probably
by the advice of his political friends, in January 1714,
Steele started, on February 25, another essay paper,
' The Lover,' dealing, as its title implied, solely with
■domestic and and social questions, and this was appear-
ing while his expulsion from the House of Commons
was in progress. It ran through forty numbers, and
was followed on April 22 by ' The Reader,' intended as
a direct opponent of ' The Examiner,' of which, how-
ever, only nine numbers were published. But neither of
these miscellanies, nor any of the friendly or unfriendly
rivals produced by other hands at this time, can be
reckoned among newspapers, and therefore they do not
concern us here.^ Of Steele's and Addison's latest con-
tributions to political journalism a little will be said
presently. A new stage in the history of the press
began with the turmoil consequent on the death of
Queen Anne and the accession of George L, in August
1714.

^ Forster, Biographical Essays (on Steele, Defoe, and others), p. 241.

^ Characteristic of the times and the political agitation then going on
was The Patriot, a respectable essay-sheet, started on March 22, 1714,
and discontinued on January 22, 1715, when its clever young editor,
John Harris, said : ' Having seen his sacred majesty King George peace-
ably proclaimed, happUy arrived, crowned, and a public day of thanks-
giving for these memorable mercies joyfully and solemnly observed, I
have nothing further to say to the world.' He had other reasons for
abandoning his probably not very lucrative task. ' As it has become too
generally known that it is writ by a person who has not yet seen two-and-
twenty,' he said, ' I would not be guilty of the arrogance to think the
town should attend to that which I might very reasonably expect they
should from The Patriot.'

96

CHAPTER IV.

IN WALPOLE's DATS.
1714—1742.

Sir Robert Walpole, as the first of ' the great com-
moners' was styled from 1721 when he was knighted,
till 1742 when he was made Earl of Orford, was a man
of note almost as soon as, at the age of twenty-four, he
became a member of parliament. He was influential
enough under Queen Anne's Whig ministers to be an
object of great hatred to the Tories, who, immediately
after they acquired supremacy in 1712, avenged them-
selves by sending him to the Tower. His turn came in
1714, when the accession of George I. at once brought
him to the front ; and, though he was out of office be-
tween 1717 and 1723, he was really the most powerful
man in England during seven-and-twenty years, and
actual head of the government during twenty-one. In
those years English newspapers were very materially
altered, and in large measure through his personal
action.

The temper that he showed was well expressed in
his speech on behalf of Richard Steele in March 1714,
while he was waiting for Queen Anne's death and the
.downfall of her Tory counsellors. As we have seen,
he claimed for the press unrestrained liberty in so far
"as the crown and the parliament were concerned, but
to the executive he assigned the power that he denied

1714. NEW THRALDOM FOR JOURNALISM 97

to the legislature. ' The mmisters,' he said, ' are suffi-
ciently armed with authority. They possess the great
sanction of rewards and punishments, the disposal of
the privy purse, the grace of pardoning, and the power
of condemning to the pillory for seditious writings/]
There was abundant cynicism in those words, addressed
to a Tory House of Commons, led by Tories whose
overthrow Walpole eagerly sought, in his own interests
and in the interests of the ' plain Whig principles ' of
which he was a zealous champion. The cynicism was
no less, nor less apparent, in his dealings with the
press throughout his long term of mastership. He did
not favour the pillory much ; but he made ample use of
the (brivy purseTj He preferred the system of rewards t
to the system of punishments, bribery to coercion ; but
his influence and its corrupting effects were not weak- \
ened or reduced, they were only made wider and more \
degrading, by the shrewdness with which he played his J
political game. '^'^

The game, however, was not invented by Walpole.
It had been in vogue all through Queen Anne's reign,
and. if the chief discredit of participation in it in those
days falls upon Tory leaders and Tory scribes, on
Harley and St. John, Swift, Mrs. Manley, and others, it
was mainly because the Tories then had more to risk
and more to lose than the Whigs. Nor were the
Whigs slow in following the precedents set for them in
the early years of George's reign, while Walpole was
steadily making for himself the position he was to hold
after 1720, and while he still had Whig rivals, clever
men and his seniors, to compete with.

The deterioration was gradual, and much excuse
must be found for it in the fact that it was inevitable.
Addison, who has told us how matters stood in Queen
Anne's time, also throws some light on the state of

VOL. I. H

98 IN WALPOLE'S days oh. IV.

affairs under King George. ' There is scarce any man
in England,' he wrote in 1716, ' of what denomination
so ever, that is not a freethinker in politics, and hath
not some particular notions of his own, by which he
distinguishes himself from the rest of the community.
Our nation, which was formerly called a nation of
saints, may now be called a nation of statesmen. Al-
most every age, profession, and sex among us has its
favourite set of ministers and scheme of government.
Our children are initiated into factions before they
know their right hand from their left. They no sooner
begin to speak, but Whig and Tory are the first words
they le.irn. They are taught in their infancy to hate
one half of the nation, and contract all the virulence
and passion of a party before they come to the use of
their reason.' Newspapers fostered this popular taste.
andjEereencouraged by it. ' Of all the ways and means
by which this political humour hath been propagated
among the people of Great Britain, I cannot single out
any so prevalent or universal as the late constant appli-
cation of the press to the publishing of state matters.
We hear of several that are newly erected in the country,
and set apart for this particular use. For it seems the
people of Exeter, Salisbury, and other large towns are
resolved to be as great politicians as the iahabitants of
London and Westminster, and deal out such news of their
own printing as is best suited to the genius of the market
people and the taste of the country.' ^ ' As our news-

^ Here are the titles and commencing dates of some of the oldest pro-
vincial papers : The Edinburgh Gazette, 1699 ; The Edinburgh Gourant,
1705 ; The Norwich Postman, 1V08 ; The Edinburgh Flying Post, 1708 ;
The Scots Postman, 1709 ; Berrorv's Worcester Journal, 1709 ; The New-
castle. Gourant, 1711 ; The Norwich Gourant, 1714 ; Tlie tialisbury Postman,
1715 ; The Exeter Mercwy, 1715 ; The Edinburgh Evening Gourant, 1718 ;
The Galedonian Mercury, 1720 ; The Gloucester Journal, 1722 ; The Reading
Mercury, 1723 ; The Hereford Times, 1739 ; Aris's Birmingham. Gazette,
1741 ; and Keene's Bath Journal, 1744.

1714-1710. ADDISON IN 'THE FREEHOLDER' 99

writers,' Addison went on to say, ' record many facts
which, to use their own. phrase, " afford great matter
for speculation," their readers speculate accordingly,
and, by their variety of conjectures, in a few years
become consummate statesmen. Besides, as their
papers are filled with a different party spirit, they
naturally divide the people into different sentiments,
who generally consider rather the principles than the
truth of the news-writer. This humour prevails to
such a degree that there are several well-meaning per-
sons in the nation who have been so misled by their
favourite authors of this kind that in the present con-
tention between the Turk and the Emperor they are
won over insensibly from the interests of Chris-
tianity and become well-wishers to the Mahometan
cause. In a word, almost every news-writer has his
sect, which (considering the natural genius of our
countrymen to mix, vary, or refine in notions of state)
furnishes every man, by degrees, with a particular
system of policy.'

' The Freeholder,' in which these sentences appear,
was itself a respectable example of the infirmity or
extravagance that Addison mildly condemned. Addi-
son's fortunes, never very gloomy, had brightened with
the change of sovereigns. He had been appointed chief
secretary to the Earl of Sunderland, Greorge I.'s lord-
lieutenant of Ireland, and part of his duty was now
the assistance of the government by journalism. Ac-
cordingly, in ' The Freeholder,' of which fifty-five num-
bers were issued between December 23, 1715, and
June 29, 1716, he undertook to demonstrate the legality
and expediency of the Hanoverian succession against
the Jacobites, who were then causing some trouble in
Scotland, and seeking to make converts in England.
For his literary service in this paper Addison was

H 2

100 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. iv..

further rewarded, and for the rcAvard he was expected
to render further literary service. His friend Steele,
who had also profited by the return of the Whigs to
power, was more independent, or subject to other influ-
ence ; and a lifelong friendship between these two was
for a little while disturbed by their taking different
sides on a question that arose in 1719. In that year
the Stanhope ministry brought in a bill, fixing a limit
to the number of peers and depriving the crown of
that one of its prerogatives by which it could bestow
titles and place in the House of Lords on as many as it
chose. Walpole, at this time out of office and to some
extent in disgrace, opposed it on the ground that it
would tend to establish an oligarchy in England, and
Steele started ' The Plebeian ' on March 14 to give
popular expression to the same opinion. Addison, who
was now a secretary of state, replied on the 19th in ' The
Old Whig,' and some angry words were addressed on
paper by each of the ' Spectator ' partners to the other,
Steele reproaching himself afterwards when, the Peerage
Bill being dropped and both the ephemeral journals
at an end, Addison died also in June. ' The Plebeian '
and ' The Old Whig ' were unimportant and uninterest-
ing publications, but by reason of their faultiness they
all the better illustrate the downward progress that
journalism was now takmg through the pressure upon
it of political partisanship.^

More notable illustration was furnished by the
career of another and more business-like, but less pros-
perous journalist. Daniel Defoe, who started his
' Review' in 1704 as an outspoken and thoroughly in-

^ Steele's last work in journalism was in The Theatre, which he started
in January 1720 aa a protest against the threatened revocation of his
patent at Drury Lane, worth COOZ. a, year. The patent was taken from
him, but it was restored on Walpole's return to power. Steele died in
1729.

1714. DEFOE'S LATER yTOUIlNALISM 101

dependent paper, as we have seen, had trimmed and
wavered during the second half of Queen Anne's reign,
holding, as he alleged, and perhaps honestly considered,
that he was steadfast to the fundamental principles ol
good government and the essential conditions of national
welfare, but shifting his ground and varymg his lan-
guage according as Whigs or Tories, or factions of either
party, were in the ascendant. He, more than any other
man, led the way in the best and worthiest development
of journalism, being the first conspicuous exemplar of
the value of political criticism, pungent and persuasive,
as an adjunct of mere news-writing ; but he had not
moral fibre enough to keep him up to his ideal, and
there is much that is distressing in his later career as a
man of letters — the ten years or so in which, writing
' The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe ' and other works
that he acknowledged and that have made his name a
household word, he wrote much more anonymously,
and, if with what he may have regarded as patriotic
purpose, trickily and with lamentable lack of self- ■
respect and honour from those around him.^

' A Review,' which never recovered from the harm
done to it by the Stamp Act, had expired m May 1713,
and in the same month had been started a new paper,
^ Mercator,' which, though Defoe denied the ' author-
ship,' was evidently inspired and mainly written by
liim. It carried on, in identical terms, the work Defoe
had lately undertaken ui ' A Review ' — advocacy of
•commercial alliance with France and enforcement of
views tending in general to a policy of as much free

* For what follows about Defoe's later work I am mainly indebted to
Mr. William Lee's Daniel Defoe, his Life aitd Beaently Discovered Writings.
With amazing industry Mr. Lee has brought together a mass of new infor-
mation about Defoe's life in his first volume, and he has filled the second
and third with a valuable collection of articles and sketches contributed
to the various papers and magazines for which Defoe wrote anonymously.

102 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. iv.

trade as was possible in the eigliteenth century. These
{^ were views not favoured by the Whigs, and there was
^ frequent contradiction of them hi ' The Flying Post,'
still conducted by George Ridpath, and the cleverest of
those journals then published which were not essay-
sheets but strictly newspapers. The other London
papers of importance issued in 1714, it may be noted,
were — besides ' The London Gazette ' aiid ' The Daily
Courant,' which was still the only daily print — ' The
Postboy ' and ' The Evening Post,' offering Tory defi-
ance thrice a week to the Whig opinions of ' The Flying
Post ' ; the moribund ' Examiner ' and ' The Weekly
Packet,' both Tory ; and ' The British Merchant,' which
supported the commercial policy of the Whigs. Several
of the old journals had died out or lost influence during
the struggle of parties incident to George I.'s succession
to Queen Anne, and a new variety of journalism came
into fashion before the end of the year. As improve-
ments on the plan of ' The Weekly Packet,' a Saturday
budget of sparse news and feeble comment, there were
started among other Saturday sheets, generally supply-
ing six double- column quarto pages of matter for three-
halfpence, ' The Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer,'
conducted in the Whig interests by George Read, a
printer and publisher in Whitefriars, ' The Weekly
Journal or Saturday's Post,' a Tory organ, for which
Nicholas Mist of Great Carter Street was responsible —
these, to avoid confusion, being usually distinguished
from one another as ' Read's ' and ' Mist's ' — and
' Applebee's Original Weekly Journal,' also a Tory
champion, issuing from Fleet Ditch. With the two
last-named, and with many more, Defoe was to be
connected.

While Oxford was in prison and Bolingbroke in
exile, consequent on the Whig supremacy under King

1714. DEFOE'S LATER JOURNALISM 103

George, Defoe, who had been employed by both the
Tory leaders, and especially by Oxford, had his share of
discomfiture and disgrace, and he found it necessary to
change his plans before the new king arrived, or the
new ministers — Halifax, Stanhope, Wharton, Pulteney,
and others — were installed. The last number of
' Mercator ' appeared on July 20, 1714, and on the 27th
Defoe embarked on a singularly impudent venture.
Though at political feud with ' The Flying Post,' he
had had some dealings with its printer, William Hurt,
against the wishes of Ridpath, and, at his instigation.
Hurt took advantage of Ridpath's temporary absence
to bring out ' The Flying Post and Medley,' which
purported to be even more loyal to the Whig cause than
Ridpath's paper really was. The number for August
14 contained a fulsome panegyric of George I., crediting
him with more graces and virtues than any other human
being had ever possessed, and describing him as a man
' born for council, and fitted to command the world.'
In a subsequent number Defoe so slandered the Tory
Earl of Anglesey, that the latter brought an action
against him for scandalous libel. These proceedings
put a stop to the sham ' Flying Post,' about which, as
there was no law of copyright then, Ridpath could only
impotently complain, and Defoe was somewhat sobered.
The proceedings were dawdled over a year or more,
and he used the interval in writing several pamphlets,
among others, 'An Appeal to Honour and Justice; being a
True Account of his Conduct in Public Aflfairs,' in which,
with a force that almost convinced his contemporaries,
and may have almost satisfied himself, he denied that he
had been guilty of political dishonesty, and in which he
uttered many shrewd opmions that were doubtless
honest. ' It has been the disaster of all parties in this
nation,' he said, ' to be very hot in their turn, and, as

104 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. it.

often as they have been so, I have diflfered from them
all, and ever must and shall do so.' He declared him-
self averse to all violence in party warfare, and urged the
government and the people ' to attain at the happy calm
"which is the consideration that should move us all. He
would merit to be called the nation's physician,' he
added, ' who would prescribe a specific for it. I think
I may be allowed to say a conquest of parties will never
do it ; a balance of parties may.'

The trial of Defoe for libelling Lord Anglesey did not
come on till July 1715. He was then found guilty, but
sentence was deferred till October. In the interval he
made his peace with the Whig ministers, who satisfied
the lord chief justice that he ought to be pardoned
' all former mistakes ' on account of the service he was
henceforth to do them. The terms of the contract and
his efibrts to comply with it were naively recorded by
himself. ' In considering which way I might be ren-
dered most useful to the government,' he wrote in 1718,
' it was proposed by my Lord Townshend that I should
still appear as if I were, as before, under the displeasure
of the government and separated from the Whigs, and
that I might be more serviceable in a kind of disguise
than if I appeared openly. Upon this foot a weekly
paper, which I was at first directed to write, was laid
aside, and the first thing I engaged in was a monthly
book, called " Mercurius Politicus." In the interval of
this. Dyer, the news-letter writer, having been dead, and
Dormer, his successor, being unable by his troubles to
carry on that work, I had an offer of a share in the
property as well as in the management of that work. I
immediately acquainted my Lord Townshend of it, who,
by Mr. Buckley,^ let me know that it would be a very

' The printer of The London Gazette, and as such a sort of literary-
agent for the government of the day.

1715-1726. DEFOE 'IN A KIND OF DISGUISE' 105

acceptable piece of service ; for that letter was really
very prejudicial to the public, and the most difficult to
come at in a judicial way in case of offence given. My
lord was pleased to add, by Mr. Buckley, that he would
consider my service in that case, as he afterwards did.
Upon this I engaged in it, and that so far that, though
the property was not wholly my own, yet the conduct
and government of the style and news was so entirely
in me that I ventured to assure his lordship the sting
of that mischievous paper should be entirely taken out,
though it was granted that the style should contmue
Tory as it was, that the party might be amused and not
-set up another, which would have destroyed the design ;
and this part I therefore take entirely on myself stUl.' ^

The elaborate fraud on the pubhc, and the Tory
party especially, which Defoe thus entered upon in
1715, with Lord Townshend for his first patron and
partner, was continued, it would seem, under other
secretaries of state till 1726. The new ' Mercurius
Politicus,' a shiUuig magazine of ' monthly observations
-on the affairs of Great Britain,' was brought out regu-
larly till September 1720, or later ; ' Dormer's News-
letter,' in manuscript, was circulated, as ' Dyer's ' had
been, among the Tory squires and the parsons with
Jacobite sympathies until August 1718 ; and in August
1717, a third periodical was added to these two, ' to be
kept, mistakes excepted,' as Defoe said, ' to pass as
Tory papers, and yet be disabled and enervated, so as
to do no mischief or give any offence to the govern-
ment.' This third periodical was ' Mist's Weekly
Journal.' Lord Sunderland, Addison's special friend,
being now secretary of state, ' with his lordship's
approbation,' wrote Defoe, ' I introduced myself, in the

' This and other self-damnatory letters of Defoe's were found by Mr.
Lee in the State Paper Office in 1864.

106 IN WALPOLE'S DATS ch. it.

disguise of a translator of the foreign news, to be so far
concerned in this weekly paper of Mist's as to be able
to keep it within the circle of a secret management, also
prevent the mischievous part of it ; and yet neither
Mist or any of those concerned with him have the least
guess or suspicion by whose direction I do it.' Mist
seems after this to have noticed that there was some-
thing wrong in the political tone of his paper, and he
had to be brought to some extent into the conspiracy,
whereupon he agreed that ' his paper shall, for the
future, amuse the Tories, but not affront the govern-
ment,' on condition that it should ' seem on the same
side as before, rally " The Flying Post," the Whig-
writers, and even the word " Whig," &c., and admit
foolish and trifling things in favour of the Tories.'

In this way, through ' Mist's Journal,' Defoe was
able to advance the Whig cause imder pretence of being
a Tory, by one or more trenchant articles which he
wrote every week from August 1717 till November
1718. A quarrel with Mist, who thought the Whiggism
was too pronounced, then led to Defoe's withdrawal ;
but the circulation of the paper suffered so much by
his absence that he was called back after ten weeks,
and he steadily continued the work from the end of
January 1719 till July 1720, writing occasional articles
after that till October 1724. In the meanwhile he also
wrote for other papers. Between June 1720 and March
1726 he was a regular contributor to the other Tory
Saturday paper, ' Applebee's Original Weekly Journal,'
which, during those six years, gave remarkable evidence
of his power and versatility almost at the close of a
long and busy life.

Besides writing for already established papers, Defoe
assisted in starting two new ones which acquired fame
and influence ; and it is characteristic of him and his

1717-1726. DEFOE IN VARIOUS NEWSPAPERS 107

journalistic ways that these should have been, or should
have purported to be, of rival politics. ' The White-
hall Evening Post,' issued on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Saturdays, was commenced on September 18, 1718, by
Wnkins, of Little Britain, as a Whig newspaper, and
more of a ministerial organ than ' The Flying Post,'
which had now passed into the hands of Matthew
Jenour of GUtspur Street. Defoe wrote for its first
number, and for most of the others, till June 1720, and
was able, perhaps glad, to give straightforward expres-
sion in it to the opinions he professed to hold, although,
seeing that he passed for a Tory, he was obliged to be
strictly anonymous. His Tory cloak had to be worn
in the more important journal, ' The Daily Post,' the
only daUy rival at that time of ' The Courant,' which
on October 21, 1719, began to be printed by Meers, of
the Old Bailey, in ostensible opposition to the govern-
ment. Defoe contributed to ' The Daily Post ' during
five and a half years, his most notable contribution
being the original of ' Robinson Crusoe,' which ran
through a hundred and sixty-five numbers ; ^ and he
may be credited with the introductory article in the
first number. ' The multitude of papers already pub-
lished is no discouragement to us at all,' it was there
said. ' 'Tis the misfortune of the town to have much
news but little intelligence, truth iU-told, lies Ul-
covered, parties ill-served, and, in a word, the readers
vilely imposed upon on all sides.' The new paper pro-
posed to give ' a just account of facts, neither lessening
one side nor magnifying the other, with clear and un-
biassed reasonings to explain doubtful cases.' ' If ever
this were useful,' it was added, ' we think 'tis so now,
when almost every transaction is set in a false light,
when misrepresentation is, as it were, the business of

' No. 125 to No. 289.

108 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS of. iv.

every writer, and whether they speak of private persons
or of public, the character of no man seems to be safe,
but scandal and slander make havoc of men's reputa-
tions without mercy.'

Defoe was an adept in some of the vices he under-
took to expose and correct. If the truths he told,
when he told truths, were not ill-told, nor the lies,
when he told lies, ill-covered, and if the parties he
undertook to serve were only too well served by him,
he was without a peer in the art, when he chose to use it,
of showing transactions in a false light and of making
a business of misrepresentation. His journalistic career
between 1716 and 1726 was not honourable to him,
and, from an ethical viewpoint, it was a melancholy
ending of the work that he so brilliantly commenced in
1704. When all his faults are acknowledged, however,
plenty remains for us to admire. In ' Mist's ' and
' Applebee's,' in ' The Whitehall ' and ' The Daily Post,'
he enlarged and improved upon the style and method of
journalism that he had initiated in ' A Review.' When
he was not bound to serve some petty party interest, he
wrote like a statesman, a philosopher, and a philanthro-
pist ; and these three qualities, or this single quality in
three phases, could never be quite obliterated even when
his prescribed theme was of the meanest sort. Through
all his sophistry, and under all his cynicism, in spite of
all his mocker}^, and only the more plainly because of
his exuberant humour, his wisdom, his generosity, and
his patriotism show themselves. He was exceptionally
far-seeing, profoundly intelligent, and as honest as his
temperament and his surroundings allowed him to be.
He held, and boldly stated, singularly advanced views
on the principles of good government, the essentials of
true justice, the primary and fundamental conditions of
social welfare in all its gradations and variations. He

1716-1726. DEFOE'S SERVICES TO JOURNALISM 109

was nearly as much of a free-trader as Richard Cobden,
nearly as much of an utilitarian as John Stuart Mill.
If he was writing on the education of children, on the
treatment of prisoners, on the marriage laws, or on any
other of the hundred other aspects in which from day to
day ' the social problem ' in its stupendous unity and its
kaleidoscopic diversity presented itself to him, lie ex-
hibited remarkable freedom from the traditions of his
day, or, if he was fettered by them, he made it clear
that he felt their bondage.

He was almost the inventor of leader writinjr, his
' letters introductory ' in ' Mist's ' and ' Applebee's '
being nearer approaches to the modem editorial method
than were the essays in his own ' Review,' or in ' The
Tatler ' or ' The Spectator ' of Steele and Addison.
He surpassed Steele and Addison again, as regards
everything but literary grace, in aiiticipating the modern
functions of the ' special correspondent,' and in him, not
in any of his contemporaries, we see the promise of
modern ' society journalism.' His tittle-tattle was, for
the times, notably free from coarseness, and as notably
free from venom. He ridiculed constantly, but did not
often sting ; and he found for his political writings an
audience among the class for which Addison and others
had catered by their more genial and frivolous essays.
' They have of late,' it was said by him or some one
else concerniug such papers in 1725, ua 'Applebee's,'
' been taken in much by the women, especially the
poHtical ladies, to assist at the tea-table.'

In October 1728, two and a half years before his
death at the age of seventy, Defoe wrote the prelimi^
nary article of ' The Universal Spectator,' an essay- sheet
started by his son-in-law, Henry Baker. It was not a
newspaper, but Defoe's definition of ' a good writer '
is worth quoting from it. ' The character of a good

110 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. iv.

writer, wherever lie is found, is this,' he said, ' that he
writes so as to please and serve at the same time. If
he writes to please, and not to serve, he is a flatterer
and a hypocrite ; if to serve and not to please, he turns
cynic and satirist. The first deals in smooth falsehood,
the last in rough scandal ; the last may do some good,
though little ; the first does no good, and may do
mischief not a little ; the last provokes your rage, the
first provokes your pride, and, in a word, either of
them is hurtful rather than useful. But the writer
that strives to be useful writes to serve you, and at the
same time, by an imperceptible art, draws you on to be
pleased also. He represents truth with plainness,
virtue with praise ; he even reprehends with a softness
that carries the force of a satire without the salt of it,
and he insensibly screws himself into your good opinion,
that as his writings merit your regard, so they fail not
to obtain it.' Defoe did not reach his ideal, but few or
none others in his day went so near it.

Two of the ablest political writers on the Whig
side at this time were John Trenchard and Thomas
Gordon. Trenchard, son of the Sir John Trenchard
who was William III.'s secretary of state, had written
several political pamphlets in the early years of the
century, the most forcible of which were in condem-
nation of the then new-fangled notion of a standing
army ; and he was nearly sixty years old, in August
1719, when he started ' The Thursday Journal,' called
after the first number ' The London Journal,' as a rival
to the Tory ' Mist's,' and ' Applebee's, and with more
vigour and independence than were shown in ' Read's.'
Associated with him in this enterprise, and indeed
•doing the larger part, under his guidance, was Gordon,
his junior by more than twenty years, and a Scotch-
man who had come to seek his fortune in London. ' He

r

1719-1723. JOHN TRENCHARD AND THOMAS GORDON 111

was not fond of -writing,' Gordon said concerning
Trenchard ; ' his fault lay far on tlie other side ; he
only did it when he thought necessary.' ' But,' adds
his friend, ' he was the best tutor that I ever had, and
to him I owed more than to the whole world besides.
From a perfect stranger to him, and without any other
recommendation than a casual coffee-house acquaintance
and his own good opinion, he took me into his favour
and care, and into as high a degree of intimacy as ever
was shown by one man to another.' ^ Between them
they made ' The^London Journal.' a great success. The
South Sea^^ubble, was at that time almost full blown,
and even Walpole's prudent warnings and threats could
not deter the people from the fascinations its blowers
offered to them. The crash came, however, in 1720,
and then Trenchard and Gordon, who in the earlier
numbers of their ' Journal ' had vainly joined in
Walpole's expostulations, found ready listeners to their
reiterated demands for ' public justice on the wicked
managers of the fatal scheme.' The series of articles, in
the form of letters signed Cato, which they wrote,
attracted immediate and wide attention.

The Cato letters, numbering a hundred and forty-
four, and running from November 1720 till December
1723 dealt with many other subjects besides the South
Sea Bubble and its blowers. One had reference to a
proposal favoured by some tyrannical Whigs for
reviving the censorship of the press in order to put a
stop to the libels and seditious talk then plentiful in it.
On this matter Cato spoke sensibly. ' As long as there
are such things as printing and writing,' he said, ' there
will be libels ; it is an evil arising out of a much greater^,
good, and as for those who are for locking up the pressJ*?-
because it produces monsters, they ought to consider

' Gordon's preface to the reprint of Cato's Letters.

1] 2 IN "WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. it.

that SO do the sun and the Nile, and that it is something
better for the world to bear some particular incon-
veniences arising from general blessings than to be
wholly deprived of lire and water. Of aU sorts of libels
scurrilous ones are certainly the most harmless and
contemptible. Even truth suifers,jDy ill-manners, and
ill-manners prevent the effect of lies^ It was an article
in the previous week's number of 'list's,' though not
one of those written by Defoe to ' amuse the Tories '
and serve the Whig government, that led Cato to speak
thus. ' The author of it,' he went on to say, ' must
surely be mad. He talks as if distraction were in his
head and a firebrand in his hand, and nothing can be
more false than the insinuations which he makes and
the ugly resemblances which he would draw. The
paper is a heap of falsehood and treason, delivered in
the style and spirit of Billingsgate — and, indeed, most
of the enemies of his majesty's person, title, and govern-
ment, have got the faculty of writing and talking as if
they had their education in that quarter. However, as
bad as that letter is, and I think there cannot be a
worse, occasion will never be taken from scurrilous and
traitorous writing to destroy the end of writing. We
know that in all times there have been men lying upon
the watch tq^tifle liberty under a pretence of suppress-
ing libels ; like the late King James, who, having
occasion for an army to suppress Monmouth's rebellion,
would needs keep it up afterwards, because forsooth
other rebellions might happen for which he was
resolved to give cause! I must own that I would
rather many libels should ^escape than the liberty of
the press should be infringedi^

' Oato's Letters, No. 32. Trenchard held in private the same sensible
views about libels which hia colleague — for the article above quoted from
was Gordon's— expressed in public. ' He was very merry with those who

1718-1721. PEOSECUTIONS FOR LIBEL 113

Neither its editors' disapproval of libel prosecutions
nor their loyalty to the Whig ministry saved ' The
London Journal ' from being proceeded against for its
plain speaking. In June 1721 Benjamin Norton Defoe
was committed to Newgate on the charge of havuig
written in it a ' scandalous and seditious libel,' the pur-
port of which is not recorded. As this young man was
Daniel Defoe's son, however, the government's indefa-
tigable scribe appears to have induced the authorities to
quash the trial. At any rate we hear no more about it.^

Others were less fortunate. Though Walpole and
his colleagues were of opiuion that they could gag the
press more completely and more advantageously to
themselves by bribes than by penalties, this pohcy took
some time in working out, and in the meanwhile it was
often considered necessary to deal roughly with the
more violent and outspoken Tories. Even Mist, whUe
Defoe was using his ' Weekly Journal ' as a ministerial
catspaw, was threatened in July 1718 and actually
fined 50^., set in the pillory, and sent to prison for three
months after trial at the King's Bench in February
1720.^ More than that, on May 28 in the same year
the House of Commons unanimously resolved that an
article in that day's number of ' Mist's Journal,' the
one which aroused Trenchard's scorn in ' The London
Journal,' was ' a false, malicious, scandalous, infamous,

wrote sourriloualy against him,' his friend tells us, 'and laughed heartily
at what they thought he resented most. Not many days before he died,
he diverted liimself with a very abusive book written by a clergyman and
pointed personally at him, by a clergyman highly obliged to his family,
and always treated with great friendship by himself.' Trenchard, who in
conjunction with Gordon had written an earlier series of papers entitled
Tlie Independent Whig, which were several times reprinted and almost
as popular as Cato's Letters, died in 1723, before the second series was
finished. Gordon married his widow and lived on till 1750.

' Lee, Daniel Defoe, vol. i. p. 352.

^ Andrews, vol. i. pp. 121, 122.

VOL. I. I

1 14 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. iv.

and traitorous libel, tending to alienate the affections of
his majesty's subjects and to excite the people to sedi-
tion and rebellion, with an intention to subvert the
present happy establishment, and to introduce popery
and arbitrary power'; and it was also resolved that
' a humble address be presented to his majesty, express-
ing the abhorrence of the house of the libel and its
detestation of the author, assuring his majesty that it
would stand by him and his family, and requesting that
he would give the most effectual orders for prosecuting
and punishing the printer and publisher of this and all
other libels.' Mist was again committed to Newgate ;
a reward of 1,000Z. was offered for the apprehension of
Dr. Gay lard, the writer of the article, of a journeyman
printer named Nathaniel Wilkinson, and of one of
Mist's apprentices ; and on July 5 Wilkinson was cap-
tured and locked up.-^ The excessive loyalty of the
House of Commons seems to have exhausted itself at
this stage, and the matter here dropped, perhaps at the
instigation of Defoe, whose secret relations with the
offending newspaper could not have been conveniently
disclosed ; but though they did not finally part com-
pany till 1724, Defoe had much less to do with Mist,
and busied himself chiefly elsewhere, after this affair.

Mist, in spite of the service he did to the govern-
ment by inserting Defoe's articles, suffered so much for
his Toryism that he may be pardoned for feelmg a
malicious pleasure at liis political and trade rivals being
punished. This happened at least once to ' Read's
Journal ' when it offended the House of Lords, not so
Whiggish as the House of Commons. In ' Mist's

' Journals of tlie House of Coinmons, vol. xix. p. 562. 'I have not
observed any case more recent than this of Mist,' says Hallam, ' wherein
anyone has been committed on a charge which could not possibly be inter-
preted as a contempt of the house, or a breach of privilege.'— OoiisMtu-
tioiud History, chap. xvi.

1721-1723. PKOSECUTIONS FOE LIBEL 115

Journal ' of March 30, 1723, it was reported that ' on
Saturday last one Mr. Kead, a printer of a Whig
journal, out of his abundant zeal to the present govern-
ment, having printed in his said scurrilous paper of that
day what he calls a list of the conspirators against his
majesty, unadvisedly and foolishly inserted the name
of a noble lord, viz. the Earl of Stafford, for which our
poor weak brother was taken into custody by the
gentleman-usher of the black rod by order of the House
of Lords.' Fom' months later, the number of ' Mist's
Journal ' for August 3 shows us how the example of
petty tyranny set by parhament was followed in lower
quarters. ' Last Tuesday,' we there read, Mr. Pajme,
publisher of a printed paper called ' The True Briton,'
was committed to Newgate by the lord mayor and
court of aldermen for contempt of the authority of that
court in Monday's paper, and another before.'

' The True Briton ' was a paper that the young
Duke of Wharton, by birth a Whig but now a Tory
and a reckless supporter of the Pretender, had lately
started as part of a joumahstic crusade against the
government, which was carried on so violently and
unscrupulously that there would have been some slight
excuse for the repressive measures adopted by the
authorities, if only these could have been successful and
could have been saved from the accompaniment of de-
moralisation in the favoured as well as in the condemned
portion of the press.

It was Wharton who had engaged in such a serious
altercation in the House of Peers with Lord Stanhope
in February 1721, that the latter had a fit of apoplexy
and died in the course of a few hours ; and though the
result of this catastrophe was that Walpole became
premier and was quickly able to make himself dictator
of English affairs during more than twenty years, the

I 2

116 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. it.

immediate issues were thought favourable to ' the high-
fliers,' as they were called. The last six years of George
^h.'s reign and the first three or four years of George II.'s
were years of rioting and plotting throughout the coun-
try, aggravated by financial troubles consequent on the
craze for speculation, of whicli the South Sea scheme
and its collapse had merely been conspicuous instances ;.
and the disloyal newspapers did much to_^ment the
general disturbance. Besides ' The Daily Post,' which
Deioewas commissioned to keep in order, and in con-
nection with which ' The British Journal,' a weekly
miscellany, was started m 1722, the Tories now had a
' Daily Journal,' published by Applebee along with his
older ' Original Weekly Journal,' so that with ' Mist's
Journal' they had thi-ee Saturday papers. They also
had ' The Postboy' and ' The Evening Post,' a younger
paper — both issued three times a week — and other organs,
among which was another new-comer, ' The Freeholder's
Journal,' as well as the Duke of Wharton's ' True
Briton ' ; and most formidable of all for a time was ' The
Countiy Journal, or The Craftsman,' soon to be known
simply as ' The_Craftsman^' the first number of which
appeared on December 7. 1726.

On its title-page ' The Craftsman ' was said to be-
' by Caleb Danvers, Esq.' Caleb Danvers was a pseudo-
nym for Nicholas Amhurst, the witty author of ' Terrse
Filius,' which had mocked at Oxford Toryism in 1721,
but now a Tory hack, in the pay of William Pulteney,
who, having quarrelled with the Whigs and gone out of
office in 1717, was at present and for many years a fierce
opponent of Walpole and his policy. Pulteney wrote
smart articles for ' The Craftsman,' but its smartest
contributor was Lmid-Bfllingbroke. lately returned from
his eight years' residence in France, and as anxious to
use and abuse the liberty of the press in attacking the-

1726-1731. BOLINGBROKE AND 'THE CRAFTSMAN' 117

government of the day as lie liad been anxious in
Queen Anne's time, and when he was master of the
situation, to check all newspaper licence that was not in
accord with the views put forward by himself, and for
him by Swift and Mrs. Manley in ' The Examiner.' In
January and February 1727 Bolingbroke published
three pamphlets, ' The Occasional Writer,' in which, in
the guise of a Grub Street hack, he made pretended
offer to become a hireling under "Walpole, and this
device enabled him to pour out many pages of bitter
sarcasm against the Whig administration. He put his
pen to ampler and fiercer use in the articles that be-
tween 1728 and 1731 he contributed to ' The Crafts-
man,' under the signature of BTumphrey Oldcastle J and
with the title of ' Remarks on the History of England.*
These scathing letters showed but a superficial know-
ledge of history, and they wilfully misrepresented the
stages of political evolution by statement of which the
writer sought to convict the Whigs of every conceivable
crime against the state ; but they sei-ved as channels
for trenchant abuse_of Walpole and his colleagues, and
-while they were being published, ' The Craftsman,' it is
said, had a circulation only equalled by that of ' The
Spectator ' in its palmiest days. The Oldcastlp letters
were, until the time of Junius, the most brilliant and
memorable specimens of this sort of journalistic work
produced in England in the eighteenth century.^

Bolingbroke was too important an enemy for even
Walpole to be bold enough to try and silence by a state
prosecution, but the comparative fi-eedom now allowed
to newspaper publishers and writers in all but one im-

' The Drapier's Letters with which in 1724 Swift discredited Wood's
halfpence, are notable evidence both of the writer's skill and of the strength
of journalism at this time ; but they belong rather to the newspaper
history of Ireland than to that of England.

118 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. it.

portant particular, presently to be referred to, clearly
indicates the change that had taken place in ministerial
I dealings with the press. Walpole had by this time
brought so many papers and their writers under his
control that he could well afford to disregard the
attacks made upon him by such as were not of his way
of thinking. Newspapers became more numerous, and
most of them were considerably enlarged during the
twenty years of his supremacy, but he cruelly de-
graded them by the system of wholesale bribery that he
adopted. In the earlier period of Whig domination under
the House of Hanover, writers like Steele and Addison
were able, with a clear conscience, to support the
ministry of the day, knowing that lucrative and digni-
fied offices would be given to them as rewards for their
journalistic services, and less successful though not less
capable writers like Defoe were able to do brilliant work
while scribbling to order. This was a state of things,
however, which could not go on without lowering the
character of the men who consented to become party
tools, and rendering the press far less serviceable than
it was intended to be to the politicians who thus cor-
rupted the newspaper trade, and compelled honest men,
if they desired to continue honest, to keep out of
it. There is little worth recording, and very little that
is not lamentable, about journalistic history during
these yearsM

The Stamp Act of 1712 having come to be care-
lessly acted upon and often evaded by printers, who
contrived to issue as pamphlets what were really news-
papers, or who ' printed their news upon paper between
the two sizes mentioned by the law,' a committee of the
House of Commons, in February 1724, probably at Wal-
pole's instigation, called on the authorities to see that
' for any sheet of paper on which any journal, mercury,

1724. WALPOLBS NEWSPAPER POLICY 119

or any other newspaper wiiatsoever shall be printed,
there shall be paid a duty of one penny sterling, and
for every half-sheet thereof the sum of one halfpenny
sterling.' ^ This was nothing more than a proper ia-
sistance on observance of the existing law, but it en-
abled the government to put some additional pressure
on those papers which it did not wish to encourage, and
in connection with this business we have a ' complete
and private list of printers, humbly laid before the
Lord Viscount Townshend,' which distinguishes those
who were ' well-affected to King George.' It specifies
Buckley, of Amen Corner, who still published ' The
London Gazette ' ; Matthew Jenour, of Giltspur Street,
who now had charge of ' The Flying Post ' ; Leach, of
the Old Bailey, who printed ' The Postman ' ; Parker
the elder, of Salisbury Street, who printed ' The Half-
penny Post,' a recently established paper ; Read, of
Whitefriars, who issued another ' Halfpenny Post ' as
well as his ' Weekly Journal ' ; and WUkins, of Little
Britain, who continued to be in charge both of ' The
Whitehall Evening Post ' and of ' The London
Journal.' When the list was prepared there were in all
three daily papers in London, ' The Courant,' ' The Daily
Post,' and ' The Daily Journal,' ten that were pub-
lished thrice a week, three of them at the price of a
halfpenny apiece, and five weeklies ; and this list does
not include ' The Daily Advertiser,' which in 1724 began
to be published, along with the tri-weekly ' Flying Post,'
by Jenour, or some other papers. The number was
increased in 1729 by ' The Daily Gazetteer,' Walpole's
particular organ, and during many years as authorita-
tively inspired by him in matters of opinion and the
general news he wished published as was ' The London
Gazette ' in respect of bald official announcements. The
' JouriMls of the House of Commons, vol. xx. p. 387.

120 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. it.

old ' Daily Courant,' however, the pioneer of English
daily papers, held its ground, and was in 1733 said to
contain 'the best precis on the side of the ministry,'
among its writers being the premier's son, Horace Wal-
pole. Dr. Bland, and Matthew Concanen.^

Concanen, who retired from journalism in 1731, on
his being rewarded with an attorney-generalship in
Jamaica, was till then one of the busiest of Walpole's
scribes, and he was ranked with the lowest by Pope
when he ridiculed the exploits of the "Whig performers
and others in swimming and diving after such base prizes
as they could aim at : —

True to the bottom, see Concanen creep,
A cold, long-winded native of the deep.^

Among Concanen's most energetic colleagues, both
in ' The Gazetteer ' and in ' The Courant,' were a smart
writer, who preserved his anonymity by styling himself
Osborn, to be generally known as Mother Osborn by
his opponents, and William Arnall, who bore the pseu-
donym of ' Francis Walsingham, Esq.' Arnall, an
attorney's clerk, who worked his way into favour, had
a weekly paper, ' The Free Briton,' started for him to
edit, and he did so much for others also that he was able
to boast that he got ' for Free Britons and other writings
in the space of four years no less than 10,997?. 6s. 8d.
out of the treasury.' ^ Pope spoke scornfully in his
' Dunciad ' of Arnall and Osborn, as well as of Con-
canen and the other political writers whom he scorned
to name.

^ Gentleman's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 91.

- The Dunciad, bk. ii. 11. 299, 300.

' Warburton's note to The Dunciad. ' He writ for hire and valued
himself upon it,' says Warburton, ' but frequently, through his fury or
folly, he exceeded all the bounds of his commission, and obliged his
honourable patron to disavow his scurrilities.' Of course both Pope and
Warburton were biassed critics.

1724, POPE ON SOME JOURNALISTS 121

Next plunged a feeble, but a desperate pack,
With each a sickly brother at his back.
Sons of a day ! just buoyant on the flood,
Then numbered with the piippies in the mud.
Ask ye their names 1 I could as soon disclose
The names of these bKnd puppies as of those.
Fast by, like Niobe (her children gone).
Sits Mother Osborn, stupefied to stone ;
And monumental brass this record bears :
' These are, ah no ! these were the gazetteers.'
Not so bold Arnall ; with a weight of skull.
Furious he dives, precipitately dull.
Whirlpools and storms his circling arms invest,
With all the might of gravitation blest.
No crab more active in the dirty dance.
Downward to climb, and backward to advance ;
He brings up half the bottom on his head,
And loudly claims the journals and the lead.

Though Pope's goddess of literary garbage awarded
the ' pig of lead ' to Arnall, she, or her laureate, came
to no decision as to

Who best can dash through thick and tliin.

And who the most in love of dirt excel,

Or dark dexterity of groping well,

Who flings most filth and wide pollutes around

The stream.

And, under a dijfferent metaphor, when his hero was
asking himself —

Sliall I, like Curtius, desperate in my zeal.
O'er head and ears plunge for the commonweal?
Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,
And cackling save the monarchy of Tories ?

Pope ranked at least one Tory editor with one Whig
■editor —

'Tis the same rope at different ends they twist ;
To dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist. '

Mist got iato trouble again in 1728, although press
punishments were fewer in George II. 's days than in

1 The Dunciad, bk. ii. U. 305-322, 276-280, 209-212, 207, 208.

122 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS cf. iv.

George I.'s. For publisliing in the number of hi&
' "Weekly Journal' for August 24 an especially offensive
letter from the Duke of Wharton, now sheltering him-
self in France, Mist was proceeded against by the
government, and he thought it prudent to seek a
hiding, like his aristocratic friend, across the channel.
Two members of his staff, however, were caught and
put in the pillory on June 19, 1729, and some months
before that date ' Mist's Journal ' had been discontinued
after a famous and chequered life of nearly twelve years.
' Mr. Mist's friends,' we are told, 'consulting together,
thought it expedient to change the title,' and in October
1728 appeared the first number of ' Fog's Weekly
Journal,' under the same management, but generally
' writ with more caution.' ^ The caution was not always
observed. In March 1732 the printer and publisher of
' Fog's ' were imprisoned for ' defaming the memory of
King William.' ^

Some of the old papers that survived were in a
moribund condition. Of ' Applebee's,' no longer made
brilliant by Defoe, it was regretfully remarked in 1733,
that ' a pack of modern wits and upstarts have almost
kicked him out of doors, so that the memoirs of dying
criminals are become the most peculiar entertainment
of his paper ; ' while ' Read's,' it was complained, was
' taken up with relating piecemeal Voltaire's " Life of the
King of Sweden,"' tales about the Inquisition, and so
forth — which led to the mocking suggestion that ' it
might not be amiss to print the Bible this way, that so
people who are frightened at a large volume might be
drawn in to read the Scriptures.' ^

' Oentlemaii's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 91 ; Andrews, vol. i. p. 132.
Defoe's last known contribution to journalism appeared in Fog's for
January 11, 1729.

" Andrews, vol. i. p. 132.

' Oentleman's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 91. This, as will be seen in

1724-1741. THE DEGRADATION OF JOURNALISM. 123

Witli all the money at his disposal Walpole did not
find it easy to keep the Whig papers up to the mark.
Even Trenchard's ' London Journal,' after he and
Gordon had left it, was so far iadependent, or, as we
are told, ' gave the government so much uneasiness,
about 1726, about the South Sea scheme, that they
thought fit to buy it into their own hands,' and the
writer known as Osborn was set to edit it.^ There came,
indeed, to be one editorial supervision of all Walpole's
bought or hired papers, and from the office of ' The Daily
Gazetteer' orders were given for the systematic advocacy
of ministerial policy by its several organs — ' the author
of " The Free Briton " on Thursdays, the author of " The
London Journal" on Saturdays, as usual ; the gentle-
men of "The Daily Courant" will choose for themselves
such days as may be convenient to them ' ; ^ and so on.
' Into this, as a common sink,' wrote Bishop Warburton,
* was received all the trash which had before been dis-
persed in several journals and circulated at the public
expense of the nation.^ The authors were the same
obscene men, though sometimes relieved by occasional
essays from statesmen, courtiers, bishops, deans, and
doctors. The meaner sort were rewarded with money,
others with places or benefices, from 100^. to 1,000^. a
year.' * When, on Walpole's downfall, a secret committee
was appointed by parliament to inquire into his con-
duct, it reported that in the ten years between February

another chapter, was actually done at a later date by at least one country
newspaper.

' GenUeman's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 91.

' Andrews, vol. i. p. 138.

' It was the custom, when Dr. Bland was editing The Gazetteer, to
allow it to be sent about post free. Hence Pope's couplet in The Dxm-
ciad :

Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,
Sent with a pass and vagrant through the land.

■* Notes to 27ie Dunciad.

124 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. it.

1731 and Februaiy 1741 he had distributed to the
authors and prmters ofpewspapers at least 50,077^. 18s.
of the public money.^ VPulteney, speaking in the House
of Commons in 1740, openly described the writers in
the Whig journals as ' a herd of wretches, whom neither
information can enlighten nor affluence elevate.' ' If
their patrons,' he said, ' would read their writings, their
salaries would quickly be withdrawn ; for a few pages
would convince them that they can neither attack nor
defend, neither raise any man's reputatioD_^by their
panegyric, nor destroy it by their defamation^Walpole
declared, perhaps with truth, that he did not take the
trouble to examine what he so lavishly paid for. ' I do
not often read the papers of either party, except when
J am informed by some who have more inclination to
such studies than myself that they have risen by some
accident above their common level.' And he added,
scornfully, ' I have never discovered any reason to exalt
the authors who write against the administration to a
higher degree of reputation than their opponents.' ^

Stray efforts were made to improve the newspapers,
even the most corrupt of which, in the natural pro-
cess of growth and to meet the increasing demand for
information, advanced in size and gave more actual
news, trae or false, than had been supplied by their
forerunners. Of the fresh papers started from time to
time most were merely ministerial organs, but a few
aimed at independence, like ' The London Crier,' which
was started in 1733 as a daily paper, ' in opposition to
the booksellers, who, having all the newspapers in their
hands except " The Craftsman," shut out of the said
papers the advertising of everything that does not go
through their hands, and endeavour to suppress by

' Andrews, vol. i. p. 138.

^ Parliamentary History, vol. xi. p. 882.

1733-1742. SOME NEW PAPERS 125

all the ways in their power whatever they have not
a concern in.' ^ An earlier and less ambitious but more
successful venture was ' The Grub Street Journal,' a
Thursday miscellany of literary and general news, with
witty verses and bright essays interspersed, which was
stai'ted in 1730 by a non-juring clergyman named
Russel, and which had Pope for one of its early con-
tributors. It was altered to ' The Literary Courier of
Grub Street ' in 1737, and lived long under that title.
' The Champion, or The Evening Advertiser,' com-
menced in 1739, is interesting because its first editor
was Captain ' Hercules Vinegar, of Pall Mall,' whose
real name was Henry Fielding. But this leads us into
a later period, as also does ' The Generous London
Morning Advertiser,' a strange daily collection of
fiction not too chaste, of more or less scandalous news
items and of advertisements, 'given gratis to aU who
are or will become subscribers to the numbers of the
Family Bible and other books published by William
Raynor,' which was started ua 1739, and in 1742,
ceasing to be ' generous,' was charged for and known
as ' Raynor's Morning Advertiser.'

' The Gentleman's Magazine,' commenced in January
1731 as a monthly miscellany, was not a newspaper,
but it holds important place in the history of news-
papers, as to it, in large measure, we owe the estab-
lishment of one of the principal functions of modern
journalism.^ Edward Cave, its enterprising projector,

^ Genthman's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 91.

" The first number, of forty-two pages in double column, contains
nineteen pages of extracts from the weekly and other papers of the pre-
vious month, a digest of home and foreign news, and some original poema
and other miscellaneous matter. This arrangement was continued for
some time, but gradually original matter squeezed out the reprints.
' Newspapers are of late so multiplied,' it was said m the prospectus, ' as
to render it impossible, unless a man makes it his business, to consult

126 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS ch. iv.

had been connected for some years witli ' Mist's
Journal/ and after that had established an agency for
supplying the London papers with country news at
a charge of a guinea a week. He had also written
news-letters for the country papers, in which he fur-
nished some account of the proceedings in Parliament.
For this latter, being a breach of privilege, he was
taken into custody and reprimanded, if not otherwise
punished, in March 1727. His continuance and ex-
pansion of the offence in ' The Gentleman's ' helped
materially to secure an important reform.

Infringement of the prerogative of parliament to
conduct its business secretly, and to have no other
report of that business published than it authorised or
its printed minutes and acts supplied, was an old
offence, for which many culprits were severely dealt
with before the time of the Commonwealth, and even
before any newspapers were started. The Long Parlia-
ment, as we have seen, was more gracious and reason-
able, but with the Restoration the old order was
revived, and all who circulated in writing or in print
the least information about the speaking or voting in
either house were at the mercy of any who cared to
bring them to book. To check the growth of what
it regarded as a serious scandal, the House of Com-
mons, on January 23, 1722, resolved 'that no news-
writers do presume, in their letters or other papers that
they disperse as minutes, or under any other denomi-
nation, to intermeddle with the debates or any other
proceedings of the house ; also, that no printer or
publisher of any printed newspaper do presume to

them all. Upon calculating the number of newspapers it is found that
{besides divers written accounts) no less than two hundred half-sheets per
month are thrown upon the press only in London, and about as many
printed elsewhere in the three kingdoms ; so that they are become the
chief channels of amusement and intelligence.'

1722-1738. EARLY PARUAMENTAHY EEPORTING 127

insert in any sucli papers any debates or any other
proceedings of this House or any committee thereof ; ^
and like announcements were made in 1729 and at
other times.

The rule was, of course, systematically broken, and
a large part of so much as we know of parliamentary
history, apart from actual legislation, down to the close
of the eighteenth century, is derived from the illicit
or grudgingly tolerated reports that were written down
by members and others at their peril. In Queen ♦
Anne's reign Abel Boyer was suffered to issue ia a
monthly pamphlet, styled ' The Pohtical State of Great
Britain,' a meagre and cautiously worded sketch of the
debates in parliament, and this publication was con-
tinued till 1735, after which it was replaced by an
annual ' Historical Register,' containing a similar epi-
tome. In 1736 Cave began to procure and to print in
' The Gentleman's Magazine ' much fuller parliamentary
reports than had hitherto, except on special and rare
occasions, been published. His bold venture was soon
imitated in ' The London Magazine,' which had been
started in rivah-y to ' The Gentleman's '; and the com-
petition that ensued was helpful to the pubhc.

These reports were at first compiled for ' The Gentle-
man's ' by William Guthrie, destined to become a
typical newspaper hack, and for ' The London ' by
Thomas Gordon, Trenchard's old colleague on ' The
London Journal.' ^ They were brief but apparently
accurate epitomes of the principal speeches, communi-
cated either by the speakers themselves or by other
members who had heard them. Soon, however, they
gave offence, aU the greater because of their popularity.
In April 1738 Arthur Onslow, the Speaker of the

' Journals of the Souse of Commons, vol. xx. p. 98.
' Parliamentary History, vol. ix. preface.

128 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS oh. iv.

House of Commons, called its attention to the practice
as one that ' a little reflected on the dignity of the
House,' which he invited to adopt ' some method of
stopping it.' Walpole, Pulteney, and others discussed
the matter in varying tones, but all agreed that this
was an abuse that oaght to be prevented. ' If we
do not put a speedy stop to this practice,' said Sir
Thomas Winnington, ' it will be looked upon without
doors that we have no power to do it, for the public
will very justly think that if we had such a power we
would exercise it ; and then, sir, what will be the con-
sequence ? Why, sir, you will have every word that
is spoken here by gentlemen misrepresented by fellows
who thrust themselves into our gallery. You will have
the speeches of this house printed every day, and we
shall be looked upon as the most contemptible as-
sembly on the face of the earth.' That was the general
opinion, and it was resolved, without a division, that
it was ' a high indignity to, and a notorious breach of
the privilege of, this house,' for any account of its
proceedings to be printed by ' any newspaper of any
denomination' ; and an emphatic warning was given
that ' this house will proceed with the utmost severity
against such offenders.' ^

Cave, however, refused to be silenced. Hitherto he
had published his reports of speeches with only the first
and last letters of the speakers' names — for instance,

W e standing for Walpole. In the number of ' The

Gentleman's Magazine ' for June 1738 he began ' An
Appendix to Captain Lemuel Gulliver's account of the
famous empire of Lilliput,' which purported to give
' debates in the senate of Great Lilliput,' and in which the
parliamentary speeches were reported under easily un-
derstood disguises, such as Walelup for Walpole ; and

' Parliamentary History, vol. x. pp. 800-811.

1788-1743. DR. JOHNSON'S PARLIAMBNTAKY REPORTS 12 &

the House of Commons, probably through fear of pro-
voking further ridicule by further meddling, did not
interfere with him. His LUHput debates, rivalled
by similar arrangements in ' The London ' and other
publications, were continued till 1752, when the old
plan of printing the initial and final letters of the
speakers' names was resumed without opposition.

Between November 1740 and February 1743 Cave
employed Samuel Johnson as editor or author of this
portion of ' The Gentleman's.' ' The debates in parha-
ment,' says Boswell, ' which were brought home and
digested by Guthrie, whose memory, though surpassed
by others who have since followed him in this depart-
ment, was yet very quick and tenacious, were sent by
Cave to Johnson for his revision ; and after some time,
when Guthrie had attained to greater variety of employ-
ment and the speeches were more and more enriched by
the accession of Johnson's genius, it was resolved that
he should do the whole himself from the scanty notes
furnished by persons employed to attend in both houses
of parliament. Sometimes, however, as he himself told
me, he had nothing more communicated to him than
the names of the several speakers and the parts which
they had taken in the debate.' ^

In later days Johnson was inclined to take credit or
to reproach himself for more invention m his reports
than — as appears by comparing them with other epi-
tomes^— they contained. When he was dining with
Foote and other Mends one day, conversation turned on
a speech of Pitt's. ' Many of the company remembered
the debate,' we are told, ' and many passages were cited
from the speech, with the approbation and applause of
all present. During the ardour of the conversation

' Boswell, lAfe of Johnson, chap. iii.
* See preface to Parliamentary History, vol. xii.
VOL. I. K

130 IN WALPOLE'S DAYS en. iv.

Johnson remained silent. When the warmth of praise
subsided, he opened his mouth with these words : " That
speech I wrote in a garret in Exeter Street." The com-
pany was struck with astonishment. After staring at
each other for some time in silent amaze, Dr. Francis
asked how that speech could be written by him. " Sir,"
said Johnson, " I wrote it in Exeter Street. I never
was in the gallery of the House of Commons but once.
Cave had interest with the doorkeeper. He and the
persons under him got admittance. They brought
away the subject of discussion, the names of the
speakers, the side they took, and the order in which
they rose, together with notes of the various arguments
adduced in the course of the debate. The whole was
afterwards communicated to me, and I composed the
speeches in the form they now have in ' Parliamentary
Debates,' for the speeches of that period are all printed
from Cave's Magazine." To this discovery Dr. Francis
made answer, " Then, sir, you have exceeded Demos-
thenes himself ! " The rest of the company were lavish
in their compliments to Johnson. One in particular
praised his impartiality, observing that he had dealt
out reason and eloquence with an equal hand to both
parties. " That is not quite true, sir," said Johnson ;
" I saved appearances well enough, but I took good care
that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it." ' ^

' Sir John Hawkins, Life of Johnson.

131

G

CHAPTER V.

walpole's legacies.

1742—1760.

[W^^t.f.ole's aims were better than his methods. Coming
to power^whenTli firm hand and a shrewd head were
needed to save England from the ruin with which it
had been threatened ia the blundering years of Whig
and Tory rivalry and treachery before and after the
passing of the crown from Queen Anne to George I., to
establish something like order at home, and, by avoid-
ance of foreign quarrels, to help the nation to hold its
own abroad, he did his work and used his opportunities,
not too honestly, but with consummate skill. We
who have profited so much by his achievements must
make allowances for the faults that were incident to
them. His Whiggism was worthier than that of many
of the Whigs around him, whom he overawed and
bribed and forced to conform to his policy ; and it was
yet worthier than that of the Tories, whom he crippled
and coerced, and who, more shameless in their trickery,
were wholly unpatriotic alike in their objects and in
their plans for reaching them. Even journalism gained
as well as lost by his treatment of it, and if the vices
he encouraged were continued under the ministers who
succeeded him — Carteret for a year, Pelham for eleven
years, Newcastle for three, and after that the older
Pitt — it largely owed to him much of the virtue it was
acquiring.^

z2

132 WALPOLE'S LEGACIES ch. t.

The most notable jfigure in newspaper history during
the second half of George II.'s reign was that of Henry-
Fielding, who, however, being a novelist and a play-
wright far more than he was a journalist, had much
less actual connection with newspapers than some hun-
dreds of his contemporaries. Fielding, who settled in.
London in 1727 when he was twenty, and, as he told
his cousin Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 'had no
choice but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coach-
man,' and who, as Lady Mary said, 'would have ap-
proached much nearer to Congreve's excellences, if not
forced by his necessities to publish without correction,
and throw many productions into the world he would
have thrown mto the fire if meat could have been got
without money or money without scribbling,' ^ had
scribbled much before November 1739, when he started
' The Champion,' of course with some one else's money,
and with one James Ralph for his colleague. ' The
Champion,' published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Saturdays, and giving in each number an ' index to the
times ' in the shape of briskly written items of news, as
well as lively articles purporting to be by ' Captain
Hercules Vinegar, of Pall Mall,' supported Walpole in
his opposition to the movement for involving England
in the Spanish war then raging. But, though ' The
Champion ' continued for some time longer, Fielding's
employment on it seems to have lasted only about half
a year, and we next meet with him- as a newspaper
writer in ' The True Patriot and the History of our
Own Times,' which was started on November 5, 1745.

Much had happened in the", interval. Walpole,.
forced by popular opinion to consent to join in the war,
when he exclaimed, ' They may ring their bells now,
but they will soon be wringing their hands,' gradually

' Lady M. W. Montagu, Letters and Works, vol. iii. pp. 93, 94.

1739-1745. FIELDING AS A JOURNALIST 166

lost Hs influence, and had to retire from office in Feb-
ruary 1742, accepting sham dignity as Earl of Orford,
which he bore uneasily during three years before his
death ; and Carteret was actual premier under the nomi-
nal headship of the venerable Spencer Compton, Lord
Wilmington, until the latter's death in July 1743, when
the Pelham administration began. Henry Pelham, a
staunch adherent of the Walpole policy, was nominee
of the dying but still powerful Earl of Orford, and till
1754 he undertook to act, under other conditions, on
his friend's instructions. His chief rival was the first
William Pitt, the report of whose memorable speech on
behalf of the Prince of Wales in 1736 Dr. Johnson
claimed to have himself concocted, and a man now too
-eager for advancement to be very careful as to the
means by which he rose. Pitt's politics were shifty,
but his sympathies were at this time altogether with the
Tories ; and it is to his credit that he did much to con-
vert Toryism from Jacobitism, and to reconcile it to
the new circmnstances which had arisen under Wal-
pole's guidance. The younger school of Tories called
themselves Patriots, and more or less emjihatically and
consistently repudiated the Jacobites, who were pre-
paring for the last spurt of rebellion which occurred in
1745. It was this new Toryism or sham Patriotism
that Fielding now undertook to expose, along with
much else, in ' The True Patriot.'

The introductory article of this paper says some
hard things about the journalism of that day. ' In
strict obedience to the sovereign power fashion,' wrote
Fielding, ' being informed by my bookseller, a man of
great sagacity in his business, that nobody at present
reads anything but newspapers, I have resolved to con-
form myself to the reigning taste. The number, indeed,
of these writers at first a little staggered us both ; but

134 WALPOLE'S LEGACIES ch. t.

upon perusal of their works I fancied a little imperfec-
tion in them all, which somewhat diminished the force
of this objection.' Fielding found, in fact, three ' little
imperfections '—the first, that ' there is scarce a syllable
of truth in them ' ; the second, that ' there is no sense
in them ' ; and the third, that ' there is in reality
nothing at all in them.' ' Paragraphs which contain
neither wit nor humour nor sense nor the least import-
ance,' he urged, 'may be properly said to contain

nothing. Such are the arrival of my Lord with

a great equipage ; the marriage of Miss , of great

beauty and merit ; and the death of Mr. , who

was never heard of in his life, &c. Nor wiU this
appear strange if we consider who are the authors of
such tracts — viz. the journeymen of booksellers, of
whom, I believe, much the same may be truly predi-
cated as of these their productions. But the encourage-
ment with which these lucubrations are read may seem
more strange and moi'e difficult to be accounted for ;
and here I cannot agree with my bookseller, that their
eminent badness recommends them. The true reason
is, I believe, simply the same which I once heard an
economist assign for the content and satisfaction with
which his family drank water-cider — viz. because they
could procure no better liquor. Indeed, I make no
doubt but that the understanding as well as the palate,
though it may out of necessity swallow the worse, will
in general prefer the better.'

In proposing to offer something better Fielding pre-
tended to be more independent than he was. ' I do
not live within a mile of Grub Street,' he said, ' nor am
I acquainted with a single inhabitant of that place. I
am of no party — a word which I hope, by these my
labours, to eradicate out of our constitution, this being,
indeed, the true source of all those evils which we have

1745-1748. FIELDING'S 'TRUE PATEIOT ' 135

reason to complain of.' The Mghest price hitherto
charged for any newspaper had been twopence. For
' The True Patriot ' — giving four large pages with three
columns in each, a leader or essay generally filling one
page, and being followed by a compact and classified
epitome of news, and two or three columns of- lively or
satirical ' we hears ' — a charge of threepence was made.
' I desire my reader,' Fielding said, ' to weigh fairly
with himself, whether he does not gain six times the
knowledge and amusement by my paper compared to
any other. I leave to his determination whether three-
pennyworth of truth and sense is not more worth his
purchasmg than all the rubbish and nonsense of the
week which will cost him twenty times as much.'

' The True Patriot ' was not so wonderful a paper
as it promised to be ; but it helped to bring the Pre-
tender's cause into contempt, and, when tlais was con-
sidered to be no longer necessary, it was discontinued
in April 1746. It was followed, however, by ' The
Jacobite Journal,' ' by John Trott-plaid, Esq.,' which
appeared every Saturday, from December 5, 1747, tUl
November 5, 1748, when Fielding thought that he and
his associates — for he does not seem to have written
much in it himself — had thrown off fireworks enough
to signalise the defeat of the party they mocked.

' The Jacobite Journal ' was an elaborate joke which
greatly amused the town while it lasted. It purported
to be written in the Jacobite interest, and to set forth
the folly and madness of this party in the boldest way.
' We scorn,' Mr. Trott-plaid was made to say, ' to regu-
late our conduct by the low documents of art and
science, hke the Whigs. We are governed by those
higher and nobler truths which nature dictates alike to
all men and to all ages ; for which reason very low
clowns and young children are as good and hearty

136 WALPOLE'S LEGACIES ch. v.

Jacobites as the wisest among us ; for it may be said
of our party as it is of poets, " Jacobita nascitur, non
fit." ' Tn his fifteenth number Fielding gave what pro-
fessed to be a prose translation from a lately- discovered
Latin poem ' De Arte Jacobita,' commencing thus :
' Come, Tisiphone, from hell ! Bring with thee ill-
judging zeal and obstinate bigotry, and inspire me
with all thy furies, while I teach the black art of
Jacobitism ! '

Fielding ridiculed much besides Jacobitism — among
the rest the way in which, by use of asterisks and
dashes and italics and so forth, journalists at that time
were fond of writing or of emphasising their foolish
statements. ' In this dress,' he said, ' I intend to abiise
the * * * and the * * * ; I intend to lash not only
the m — stry, but every man who hath any p — ce or
p — ns — on from the g — vernm — t, or who is entrusted
with ajiy degree of power or trust under it, let his r-nk
be ever so high or his ch-r-cter never so good. For this
purpose I have provided myself with a vast quantity of
Italian letter and asterisks of all sorts. And as for all
the words which I emhowel, or rather envoicel, I will
never so mangle them but that they shall be as well
known as if they retained every vowel in them. This
I promise myself, that when I have any meaning they
shall understand it.'

If the public laughed at Fielding's humour, those
against whom it was directed resented it. ' Old Eng-
land, or the Broad Bottom Journal,' which had been
started by WiUiam Guthrie in April 1745 and had
Lord Chesterfield for one of its contributors, described
the author of ' Joseph Andrews ' in its number for
March 3, 1748, as ' a needy vagrant who long hunted
after fortunes, scored deep at taverns, abused his bene-
factors in the administration of public affairs, hackneyed

1748. 'THE JACOBITE JOUKNAL' AND 'OLD ENGLAND' 137

for booksellers and newspapers, lampooned the virtuous,
ridiculed all the inferior clergy in the dry unnatural
character of Parson Adams, related the adventures ot
footmen and wrote the lives of thief-catchers, bilked
every lodging for ten years together and every alehouse •
and every chandler's shop in every neighbourhood, and
defrauded and reviled all his acquaintances, meeting and
possessing universal infamy and contempt.' And when
' The Jacobite Journal ' was discontinued, ' Old England '
of November 20 proposed an epitaph for its imaginary
conductor —

Beneath this stone

Lies Trott-plaid John ;
His length of chin and nose,

His crazy brain,

Unhumorous vein
In verse and eke in prose.

Guthrie, who edited ' Old England,' and who had
formerly been provider of the notes that Johnson worked
up in the parliamentary reports of ' The Gentleman's
Magazine,' was one of the most zealous scribes in the
employ of the Broad Bottom Government, as it was
called, of which Pelham was the head, and the dis-
cordant members of which followed Walpole's example
in some respects and departed from it more and more
in others. 'In the year 1745-6,' Guthrie wrote to a
member of Lord Bute's admmistration as soon as it was
formed, in June 1762, ' Mr. Pelham, then first lord of
the treasury, acquainted me that it was his majesty's
pleasure I should receive, till better provided for, which
never has happened, 200^. a year to be paid by him and
his successors in the treasury. I was satisfied with
the august name made use of, and the appointment has
been regularly and quarterly paid me ever since. I
have been equally punctual in doing the government
all the services that fell within my abiHties or sphere of

138 walpole's legacies ch. v.

life, especially in those critical situations that call for
unanimity in the service of the crown. Your lordship
may possibly now suspect that I am an author by pro-
fession. You are not deceived, and will be less so if
you believe that I am disposed to serve his majesty
under your lordship's future patronage and protection
with greater zeal, if possible, than ever.' ^ It was a bad
day for journalism when the term ' author by profession '
was recognised as appropriate to one who sold what-
ever skill in writing he had to the men in office, and
when 200/. a year was acceptable pay to a prominent
tradesman in this line. Guthrie, however, doubtless
had other sources of income, and he wrote histories as
well as newspaper articles and pamphlets.

Guthrie was luckier than some others of his class.
Of Amhurst, who had besjun ' The Craftsman ' in 1726
to carry on the Tory fight, it was said that ' after being
the drudge of his party for the best part of twenty years
together, he was as much forgotten in the famous com-
promise of 1742 as if he had never been born, and when
he died of what is called a broken heart, which hap-
pened within a very few months afterwards, became
indebted to the charity of his very bookseller for a
grave — a grave not to be traced now because then no
otherwise distinguished than by the freshness of the
turf borrowed from the next common to cover it.' ^

That pathetic account of Amhurst was given by
James Ralph, Fielding's associate in ' The Champion '
between 1739 and 1742, and afterwards for some years
a busy hanger-on of the Prince of Wales's faction,
which was then doing all it could to stir up mischief
between George II. and his ministers and to promote
confusion in the country. Ealph had been a poetaster

' D'lsraeli, Calamities of Authors.
" James Ralph, The Case of Authors.

1742-1749. FIELDING'S CONTEMPORAEIES 13&

before lie became a journalist, and bad caused Pope to
exclaim —

Silence, ye wolres, while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes night hideous. Answer him, ye owls.*

He was put to edit ' The Remembrancer ' as an organ
of the Prince of Wales ui 1749, with money found by
Bubb Dodmgton and others. According to Dodiagton,
to whom he acted for some time as a sort of private
secretary, he was ' a very honest man,' but ' ready to
be hired to any cause ' ; and in the course of his career
as a scheming intermediary between rival plotters ' he
actually put hunself to auction between the two con-
tending parties — the Bedfords and Pelhams — and, after
several biddings, was bought by the Pelhams.' ^ He
died, poor and disgraced, in 1762.

In days when nearly every journalist obtained, or
sought without obtaining, some post or pension as a
reward for political service, it would have been strange
if none had fallen to Fielding ; and though the office
bestowed upon him was a strange one, considering that
he had no technical knowledge of the law and was
himself somewhat of a vagabond, he acquitted himself
worthily in it. In 1749, through the influence of his
friend George Lyttelton, then a lord of the treasury,
he was made a justice of the peace for Middlesex and
Westminster. This work, and the writing of ' Tom

' 27te Dunciad, bk. iii. 11. 165, 168. Warburton says in a note :
'This low writer attended his own works with panegyrics in the journals,
and once in particular praised himself highly above Mr. Addison. He
was wholly illiterate and knew no language, not even French. Being
advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he
smiled, and replied, " Shakespeare writ without rules." He ended at last
in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper, to which he
was recommended by his friend Arnall, and received a small pittance for
pay.'

^ Diary of Bubh Dodmgton, preface.

140 WALPOLE'S LEGACIES ch. v.

Jones ' and ' Amelia,' gave Mm plenty of occupation
for the remaining five years of his life ; but he found
time to project and write much for ' The Covent Garden
Journal,' which appeared every Tuesday and Saturday
from January 4 till November 25, 1752, and which
soon had for a rival ' The Drury Lane Journal,' edited
by Bonnell Thornton. ' The Covent Garden,' ' by Sir
Alexander Drawcansir, knight, censor of Great Britain,'
dealt with political, literary, and general matters, as well
as theatrical, giving both news and comments, and was
a wise and wittj'- example of this kind of journalism in
the best form then possible. In the seventy-second
number, however. Fielding said, ' I shall here lay down
a paper which I have neither inclination nor leisure to
carry on any longer ' ; and he invited his readers to
transfer their favour to 'The Public Advertiser,' which
was to be commenced on December 1 as a new and im-
proved series of ' The General Advertiser.'

The announcement concerning this reconstructed
journal is interesting. After eighteen years of progress,
say its proprietors, ' they have determined to enlarge
the plan of their paper, and for that purpose have
settled a real correspondence at Paris and at the Hague,
in order to receive a better and more authentic account
of foreign affairs than hath hitherto been transmitted,
and have also taken every method in their power to
procure the most early intelligence of all material trans-
actions in Great Britain and Ireland (fit to be made
public).' They take credit for having kept their
columns clear of matter not ' fit to be made public,' and
for never having ' indulged the liberty of aspersing the
characters of particular persons.' They further announce
that they ' will continue as usual the playbills of both
the theatres, which are in no other paper, and all other
advertisements with which the public may be pleased

1762. ' THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER ' 141

to favour it.' ^ Moreover, ' Mr. Justice Fielding gives
notice that all advertisements and articles which con-
cern the public and which come from his clerk's office
shall for the future be inserted in this paper only.'

What was Fielding's connection with ' The Public
Advertiser ' and its predecessor is not clear ; but as this
was the paper afterwards made especially famous by .the
letters of Junius, its antecedents are worth tracing.
' The Daily Post,' which, as we have seen, Defoe had a
hand in starting in 1719, had continued to flourish, and
it outlived ' The Daily Courant,' its older rival. Henry
Woodfall, the head of a famous family of printers, be-
came its principal proprietor in 1726, and the shares
rose to such value that for one of them, ' one-third of a
tenth,' 281. was paid in 1737 to Theophilus Gibber by
Henry Woodfall the younger.^ Woodfall and his part-
ners altered the name to ' The London Daily Post and
General Advertiser,' which was again altered to ' The
General Advertiser' in 1744, and became ' The Public
Advertiser ' at the close of 1752. ' The Daily Adver-
tiser,' started by Matthew Jenour in 1724, to which Sir
John Hill contributed between 1751 and 1753 a series
of articles styled ' The Inspector,' which caused some
excitement, was a separate paper ; and there were others,
most of them short-lived, of kindred names. One such
was ' The London Advertiser and Literary Gazette,' of
which the first number was published in March 1751,
which informed its readers that ' custom has established
it as the present plan of a paper of this kind that it
consists of three distinct parts — an introductory disser-

J ' Before this time,' says John Bee in his Life of Foots, ' the news-
papers— or rather one of them only — paid the theatres 2001. annually for
intelligence as to what was going on at the respective houses, whereas at
present nearly five times that sum, per estimate, is received by the papers
for theatrical advertisements from all the houses. '

" Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 300.

142 WALPOLE'S LEGACIES of. t.

tation, articles of intelligence, and advertisements : the
first is always intended to have some entertainment, the
second some truth, and the third some business.'

Other new papers appeared in abundance during
these years, but the low state of public morality and the
vicious influences exerted upon journalism kept most
honest men out of the field, or caused many of the
cleverest to prefer essay writing in the style of Steele
and Addison to political controversy. ' The Rambler,'
which Johnson started in March 1750, was one of a large
group or series of essay-sheets, including ' The Adven-
turer,' which Hawkesworth, who had succeeded Johnson
as writer of the parliamentary reports in ' The Grentle-
man's Magazine,' began in April 1752 ; ' The World,'
commenced in January 1753 by Edward Moore, who
obtained help from Lord Chesterfield, Horace Walpole,
and others ; ' The Connoisseur,' of 1754, with George
Colman and Bonnell Thornton as ' Mr. Town Critic and
Censor General ' ; and ' The Dreamer,' edited by Dr.
William King. Such papers as these were in their
nature ephemeral, as also were the more political
weeklies occasioned by the quickening of party strife
after the death of Pelham in 1754.

The last six years of George II. 's reign were critical.
Walpole's policy, both what was best and what was
Avorst in it, had been so far departed from even by
those who professed themselves his followers, that new
tactics became necessary, and a political revolution was
only deferred, in so far as it was deferred, while people
waited for the old king's death and his grandson's
accession. The ablest statesman, perhaps the only real
statesman, of that day was the elder Pitt, who felt free
to use his strength as soon as Pelham was out of the
way, and who was master of the situation even while
the Duke of Newcastle held office as premier. But the

1752-1757. SOME GEORGIAN ESSAY-PAPERS 143

situation was troubled, and to the perplexed public
many journalists, both of the old school and of a new
one, offered themselves as guides.

In November 1756, for instance, appeared the first
number of ' The Test,' edited by Arthur Murphy,'- which
undertook to maintain ' the true principles of Whiggism
as they were understood and felt at the glorious Revolu-
tion, as they were felt by Mr. Steele, Mr. Addison, the
late Duke of Argyle, and the noble band of patriots
who gloriously stepped forth in the latter end of Queen
Anne's reign when a faction had surrounded the throne,
and men of brilliant but dangerous parts had usurped
the administration.' ' The Test ' made Pitt the special
object of its attack ; and on November 23 it began to
be opposed by ' The Con- Test,' edited in the Tory in-
terest by Philip Francis, the translator of Horace and
Demosthenes.^ ' This paper,' it was announced, ' will be
continued occasionally so long as the envy and prejudice
of mankind shall render a "Con-Test" necessary.' It
outlasted ' The Test,' which was discontinued in July

' Murphy started Tlie Gray^s Inn Journal, in the style of The Govent
Garden Journal, in 1752. ' During the publication of The Gray's Inn
Journal, a periodical paper which was successfully carried on by Mr.
Murphy alone,' says Boswell (Life of Johnson, chap, si.), 'he happened
to be in the country with Mr. Poote, and having mentioned that he was
obliged to go to London in order to get ready for the press one of the
numbers of that journal, Foote said to him, " You need not go on that
account. Here is a French magazine in wliich you will find a pretty
Oriental tale. Translate that and send it to your printer." Mr. Murphy
having read the tale, was liighly pleased with it, and followed Mr. Foote's
advice. When he returned to town, this tale was pointed out to him in
The Bamhler, from whence it had been translated into the French maga-
zine. Mr. Murphy then waited upon Johnson to explain this curious
incident. His talents, literature, and gentlemanlike manners were soon
perceived by Johnson, and a friendship was formed which was never
broken.' Murphy, who was not very successful as a playwright, was
rewarded for his political writing with a commissionership of bankruptcy.
He translated Tacitus and wrote a Life of Garrick.

' Francis, whose Con-Test won him the chaplaincy of Chelsea Hospi-
tal, was the father of Sir Philip Francis.

144 WALPOLE'S LEGACIES ch. v.

1757. Murphy, however, produced ' The Auditor,' again
in opposition to Pitt, in January 1762. A more impor-
tant paper, ' The Monitor,' begun in 1755, "wUl be men-
tioned hereafter.

Papers of a different sort were ' The London
Chronicle,' appearing thrice a week, which was started
by Dodsley m 1756 ; and ' The Universal Chronicle or
Weekly Grazette,' which was started by Newberry in
AprU 1758. For the former ffohnson wrote the pre-
limmary article, being paid a guinea for it, and two
or three others. To the latter he contributed the
series of essays afterwards re-issued as ' The Idler.'
These essays were inserted in ' The Universal Chronicle '
on the plea that ' the occurrences of the week were
not sufficient to fill the columns,' but they at once
became its chief attraction, and Johnson had, in
January 1759, to prepare an advertisement warning the
publishers of other papers who had ' with so little
regard to justice or decency ' reprinted them into their
own columns without permission or acknowledgment,
that ' the time of impunity was at an end.' ' Whoever '
he said, ' shall, without our leave, lay the hand of
rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall
vindicate our due by the means which justice pre-
scribes and which are warranted by the immemorial
prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold
in our turn on their copies, degrade them from the
pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract
them into a narrow space, and sell them at a humble
price ; yet not with a view of growing rich by confisca-
tions, for we thmk not much better of money got by
punishment than by crimes.' ^

1 Though Johnson was reasonably proud of his essays, he was also
according to Boswell, proud of the speed with which he turned them off
'Mr. Langton remembers Johnson, when on a visit to Oxford, asking

1758. DR. JOHNSON ON NEWSPAPERS 145

Thougk Johnson wrote foi* newspapers, he sneered
at them. ' One of the principal amusements of the
Idler,' he said, ' is to read the works of those minute
historians, the writers of news, who, though contemp-
tuously overlooked by composers of bulky volumes, are
yet necessary in a nation where much wealth produces
much leisure, and one part of the people has nothmg to
do but to observe the hves and fortunes of the other.
To us, who are regaled every morning and evening
with intelligence, and are supplied from day to day
with materials for conversation, it is difficult to con-
ceive how man can subsist without a newspaper, or to
what entertainment companies can assemble in those
wide regions of the earth that have neither " Chronicles "
nor "Magazines," neither "Gazettes" nor "Advertisers,"
neither " Journals " nor " Evening Posts." AUforeigners
remark that the knowledge of the common people of
England is greater than that of any other vulgar. This
superiority we undoubtedly owe to the rivulets of
intelligence which are continually trickling among us,
which every one may catch, and of which every one
jjartakes.' And he added more severely : ' The compi-
lation of newspapers is often committed to narrow and
mercenary minds, not qualified for the task of delight-
ing or instructing, who are content to fill their paper
with whatever matter is at hand, without industry to
gather or discernment to select. Thus journals are
daily multiplied without increase of knowledge. The
tale of the morning paper is told in the evening, and
the narratives of the evening are brought out again in

him one evening how long it was till the post went out, and, on being
told about half an hour, he exclaimed, " Then we shall do very well I "
He, upon this, instantly sat down and finished an Idler, which it waa
necessary should be in London the next day. Mr. Langton having signified
a wish to read it, " Sir," said he, "you shall do no more than I have done
myself." He then folded it up and sent it off.' — Life of Johnson, chap. x.
VOL. I. L

146 WALPOLE'S LEGACIES ch. t.

the morning. These repetitions, indeed, waste time,
but they do not shorten it. The most eager peruser of
aiews is tired before he has completed his labour, and
many a man who enters the coffee-house in his night-
gown and slippers is called away to his shop or his
dinner before he has well considered the state of
Europe.' ^ ' In Sir Henry Wotton's jocular definition,'
Johnson wrote in angrier mood, ' an ambassador is said
to be a man of virtue sent abroad to tell lies for the
advantage of his country. A news-writer is a man
without virtue who writes lies at home for his own profit.
To these compositions is required neither genius nor
knowledge, neither industry nor sprightliness, but con-
tempt of shame and indifference to truth are absolutely
necessary.' '■*

Samuel Foote, the great theatrical manager of that
day, and a prolific writer of comedies smart enough to
please the town, satirised the baser sort of pressmen
in many of his pieces. In one of them, for instance,
Margin, an editor, is congratulating himself on the
growth of his circulation from 1,230 copies in Septem-
ber to 2,006 in June — 'good increase for the time, con-
sidering, too, that the winter has been pretty pacific;
dabbled but little in treasons, and not remarkably scur-
rilous, unless, indeed, in a few personal cases ' — when
his ' authors,' Pepper, Plaster, Rumour, O'Flam,
Forge'em, Fibber, and others, come in for instructions.
The first two are political writers by profession, but
Margin proposes other work to them for the present.

Margin. As both the Houses are up, I shall adjourn your political
warfare till their meeting again.

Pepper. Don't you think the public would bear one skirmish more
before we close the campaign ? I have a trimmer here in my hand.

Plaster. To which I have as tart a retort.

Margin. No, no ; enough for the present. It is, Plaster, the proper

' The Idler, May 27, 1758. - Ibid., November 11, 1758.

1773. SAMUEL FOOTE ON NEWS-WRITERS 147

timing the subject that gives success to our labours. The conductor of a
newspaper, like a good cook, should always serve things in their season.
Who eats oysters in June ? Plays and parliament houses are winter pro-
visions.

Pepper. Then half the satire and salt will be lost. Besides, if the great
man should happen to die or go out ?

Margin. Pshaw ! it wiU do as well for the great man that comes in.
Political papers should bear vamping, like sermons. Change but the
application and text, and they will suit all persons and seasons.

Plaster. True enough ; but, meantime, what can we turn to ? for we
shall be quite out of work.

Margin. I warrant you, if you are not idle, there's business enough.
The press teems with fresh publications — histories, translations, voyages —
and what with letters from Paris or Spa, inundations, elopements, dismal
eflFects of thunder and lightning, remarkable causes at country assizes, and
with changing the ministry now and then, you will have employment
enough for the summer.

Plaster. And so enter upon our old trade in the winter.

Margin. Ay ; or, for variety, as it must be tiresome to take always
one side, you. Pepper, may go over to administration, and Plaster will
join opposition. The novelty may, perhaps, give fresh spirits to both.

Pepper. With all my heart. A bold writer has now no encouragement
to sharpen his pen. I have known the day when there was no difficulty
in getting a lodging in Newgate, but now, all I can say won't procure me
a warrant from a Westminster justice.

Margin. You say right ; hard times, Master Pepper, for persecution
is the very life and soul of our trade. But don't despair. Who knows
how soon matters may mend ?

Then Rumour and O'Flam, ' collectors of para-
graphs,' are called up.

Margin. Well, Rumour, what have you brought for the press?

Bumcmr. I have been able to bring no positives.

Margin. How ? no positives 1

Rumour. Not one. I have a prohability from the Court end of the
town, and two good supposes out of the city.

Margin. Hand them here. [Reads]. ' It is probable that if the King
of Prussia should join the Tsarina, Prance would send a fleet into the
Mediterranean, which, by giving umbrage to the maritime powers, will
involve Spain by its family compact ; to which if Austria should refuse to
accede, there may be a powerful diversion in Poland, made conjointly by
Sweden and Denmark ; and, if Sardinia and Sicily abide by the treaties,
the German princes can never be neuter ; Italy will become the seat of
war, and all Europe be soon set in a flame.' Vastly well. Master Rumour,
finely confused and very alarming. [To clerk]. Dingey, give him a,
shilling for this. I hope no other paper has got it ?

148 WALPOLE'S LEGACIES ch. v.

Humour. 0, fie, did you ever know me guilty of such a

Margin. True, true. Now let us see your supposes. [Beads.] ' It is
supposed, if Alderman Mango should surrender his gown, he will be suc-
ceeded by Mr. Deputy Drylips ; and, if my Lord Mayor sh6uld continue
ill of the gout, it is supposed swan-hopping will cease for the season.' That
last suppose is fudged in. Why, would you cram these upon me for a couple ?

Bitmour. As distinct as can be.

Margin. Fie, remember our bargain. You agreed to do the Court of
Aldermen always for sixpence.

Bumour. What, if a Common Hall should be called ?

Margin. O, then you are to have threepence a motion ; I know that
very well ; I am sure no gentleman can accuse me of being sneaking.
Dingey, give him sixpence for his supposes. Well, Phelim O'Flam, any
deaths in yovir district 1

O'Flam. The devil a one.

Margin. How, none?

O'Flam. O, yes, a parcel of nobodies that died worth nothing at all ;,
fellows that can't pay for a funeral. Upon my conscience, I can't tliink
what becomes of the folks. For my part, I believe all the people who
live in town fall down dead in the country ; and then, too, since Dr.
Despatch is gone to Bath, patients linger so long.

Margin. Indeed !

O'Flam. To be sure they do. Why, I waited at the Jolly Topers a
matter of two days and a half for the last breath of Lady Di Dropsy, for
fear some other collector should catch it. Mr. Margin, I shall quit the
mortality walk, so provide yourself as soon as you can.

Margin. I hope not.

O'Flam. Why, what will I do ? I am sure the deaths won't keep me
alive. You see I am already stripped to my shroud. Since November,
the suicide season, I have not got salt to my porridge.'

That and Foote's other sketches of newspaper men
were, of course, grotesque exaggerations ; but there-
was a measure of truth m them, and they show that in
the middle of the eighteenth century journalism had
made considerable progress towards some of the faults
and failings that unfair critics tell us are peculiar to
the nineteenth.

' Foote, The Bankrupt, act iii. scene 2. This amusing play was not
produced till 1773, and some of the passages quoted above were evidently
prompted by the press prosecutions referred to in the next chapter. In
the main, however, it was doubtless quite as correct for George 11 's as
for George III.'s reign.

149

CHAPTER VI.

WHiKES AND JUNIUS.
1755—1772.

Though English newspapers had been growing during
nearly a century and a half before the reign of
George III. began, their modern history only dates
from that reign, and their recent progress has been in
large measure due to the new contest, or the old contest
under new conditions, forced upon them as champions
of popular rights and exponents of public opinion in
opposition to the efforts of the crown and its advisers
to maintain an authority, and perpetuate iastitutions,
that were becoming intolerable to the nation. The
mysterious author of the letters of Junius was the
ablest and most memorable warrior in this journalistic
struggle, but the war, lasting long after he ceased to
write, was commenced before he took up the pen, and
before George III. occupied the throne.

When, with Henry Pelham's death in March 1754,
the ' Broad Bottom Administration,' of which he had
been the capable head, came to an end, George II.
exclaimed, ' Now I shall have no more peace ' ; and to
others besides the old king the trouble was great.
Under Pelham's management of affairs the long feud
between Whigs and Tories had been brought to a
pause. Sir Robert Walpole's poHcy had been so firmly
established in principle and so much altered in practice,

150 WILKES AND JUNIUS oh. vi.

that, while wide differences of opinion and yet wider
differences in tactics arose among those who called
themselves Whigs, there were not many left who chose
to call themselves Tories, and of these only a few held
to the traditions of Harley and St. John. Jacobitism
had been stamped out with the crushing of the rebellion
of 1745, and the new Toryism that was to be strong
under the guidance of the younger Pitt had not yet
shaped itself. The elder Pitt was Pelham's ablest sur-
vivor, and an abler man than Pelham ; but now he
claimed to be a Whig, and, if not particularly honest, and
less consistent than he was honest, he was too demo-
cratic and too patriotic to be liked by the AVhigs who
held him in aAve. These other Whigs were nearly all
of them contemptible place-seekers, full of a mercenary
greed that Pitt in no way shared with them. Forty
years' experience on the other hand had convinced the
Tories that, all attempts to effect a Stuart restoration
being futile, their only chance of influencing public
affairs, and of forcing their way into office, was in
accepting the Hanoverian succession and much else
which their fathers had resented. They had been
avowed malcontents, underhand plotters, and open-
mouthed preachers of sedition, throughout Walpole's
time and Pelham's, and, George II. being now more
than seventy years old, they waited impatiently, and
with not a little anxiety, to see what benefits they and
their cause might get from the impending change of
monarchs. For this change they had to wait more than
six years, during which the young Prmce of Wales was
kept in such seclusion that few could tell what Ime he
would take, although much was hoped from the known
leanmgs of the prince's tutor or governor, the Marquis
of Bute, and the known influence of this disreputable
nobleman over the prince's lately widowed mother.

1755. WORK FOR 'THE MONITOR' 151

That was the state of things while the Duke of
Newcastle and the elder Pitt, separately or jointly,
adaiinistered the nation's affairs after 1754 ; and it was
by way of putting a newspaper check on the schemers
at court that ' The Monitor ' was started in August
1755, and carried on a brave war during more than six
years, before and after George III.'s accession. From
the dedication of the first volume we learn that ' The
Monitor' was originated — that is, apparently, the
necessary money was found for it — by Richard Beckford,
alderman of Farringdon Without, and member of parlia-
ment for Bristol, who seems to have been a younger
bi'other of the more celebrated Alderman William
Beckford, who was member for London in two parlia-
ments and thrice lord mayor before his death in 1770.
Richard Beckford died in 1756;^ but his political
opinions were steadily maintamed m ' The Monitor,'
which had for its editor John Entinck, who wrote a
' History of London,' and compiled a Latin Dictionary
with which some schoolboys are still familiar.

The task that ' The Monitor ' took upon itself was
' to commend good men and good measures, and to
censure bad ones, without respect of persons, and to
awaken the spirit of liberty and loyalty for which the
British nation was anciently distinguished, but which
was in a manner lulled asleep by that golden opiate
which weak and wicked ministers for many years had
too successfully tendered to persons of all ranks as
a necessary engine of government, though, in truth,
nothing less than a libel upon their own measures,
which could not be justified upon principles of wisdom
and integrity.' In its pages there were to be ' no sar-
castical reflections upon majesty, no seeds of disaffection,
no imputations to persons without evident facts or

' Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxvi. p. 91.

152 WILKES AND JUNIUS oh. ti.

probabiKties to support them, no attempts to weaken
the hands of government, no wilful misrepresentation of
men and measures, or the least design to impose upon
the understanding of the people ' ; but ' a dutiful re-
gard shown to the prince upon the throne, without
foolish and fulsome flattery, a true zeal for a Protestant
succession and for a religious observance of the Act of
Settlement, a manly reprehension of ministers when
they do amiss, a modest panegyric upon them when
they act wisely ; which proves that the controversy is
not about men, but measures, and that party is entirely
out of the design.'

' The Monitor ' was not a newspaper in the sense
of a paper supplying news. It was a six-paged folio,
furnishing each Saturday as forcible a political essay as
Entinck could write or get written for him, somewhat
on the plan adopted long before by Steele and Addison,
and now followed by Johnson and others, but unlike
most of these, and following the example of Defoe, and
more recently of Fielding, when he was grave, in
sticking to politics, and keeping clear of social and
literary subjects. England, when it started, was about
to embark, under Pitt's guidance, in the Seven Years'
War, and was grievously hampered in its progress by
squabbles and jealousies of statesmen, courtiers, and
adventurers of every sort. ' We are on the brink of
two precipices,' it was boldly asserted in the first
number, ' chained by a most heavy debt and other great
and imminent dangers from within, and just on the
point of war with a great and powerful enemy, the
event of which may determine our being as a free and
independent nation. Nothing less than a vigorous ex-
ertion of our natural rights, and unanimous consensus,
with the divine assistance, in the defence of our liberties,
king, and country, can prevent us from sinking under

1755-1763. 'THE MONITOR' AND ITS WARNINGS 153

the weiglit of such multiplied and growing evils.' ' Let
us endeavour,' it urged, ' to restore the integrity of
government, and root up corruption, the principal
•source from which all our domestic evils have sprung.'

In that temper ' The Monitor ' entered on its self-
appointed mission, and it persevered in it during the
remainder of the Duke of Newcastle's administration^
through the years in which Pitt was premier, and for
some time after. Feaiiessly discussing the week's
events, and illustrating its views by appeals to history
and the teachings of philosophers, it delighted and
instructed a large section of the London public, and
became a terror to ministers, and yet more to the dis-
honest schemers who were out of the ministry, and
who, whUe Pitt was in office, gathered more and more
round the Earl of Bute.

' Lord Bute called on me, and we had much talk
about setting up a paper,' wrote the fussy and un-
scrupulous Bubb Dodington on December 20, 1760.
That was only seven weeks after George III. had
become king, three months before Bute had forced
himself into a secretaryship of state, and seventeen
months before he considered himself strong enough to
usurp the premiership. If, throughout this interval,
there was much or frequent ' talk about setting up
a paper ' in opposition to ' The Monitor,' there was
nothing but talk till after May 22, 1762, on which day,
rumour having anticipated Bute's coup d'etat of the
following week, ' The Monitor ' came out with an article
of special vehemence, not naming the usurper, but
clearly pointing at him, and tendering some plain advice
and warning to the young king. ' A wise prince,' it
said, ' ought to resolve never to give himself up totally
to those he advances to power. His prudence will call
' Bubb Dodington's Diary, p. 219.

154 WILKES AND JUNIUS en. ti.

upon him to distrust the smallest beginnings, and
preserve him from the temptation of superficial qualities.
He will show a confirmed hatred to flattery, and won't
allow anything but truth and justice to influence his
actions, and he will be persuaded in his own mind that,
if he does not preserve a love of truth, and show a
particular regard to those who are capable and honest
enough to tell it to him, he shall sooner or later be
delivered by divine justice into the bands of a favourite
that shall make the people mourn, and eclipse the glory
of the crown.' This and much more to the same efi^ect
was stronger language than Bute and his friends could
meekly submit to. They took counsel together, and on
May 29, just a week after the publication of this direct
attack upon them in ' The Monitor,' the first number of
' The Briton ' was issued.

The editor chosen for ' The Briton ' was Tobias
Smollett — an unwise choice, for Smollett, skilful
novelist though he was, was a very unskilful contro-
versialist, and had already, in ' The Critical Review,'
which he started in 1756, shown that he could neither
write smartly on matters of fact nor substitute fiction
for fact in such ways as to save himself from fine or
imprisonment for his slanders. He was a hard-working
Tory hack, however, and, as he was often reminded by
his enemies, even if he did not often remind his em-
ployers, a Scotchman with special claims on the Scotch-
men now in power. He was also proficient in the
vocabulary of vituperation. In his first number, an-
nouncing that the purpose of ' The Briton ' was to oppose
and expose and depose ' The Monitor,' he described it as
' a paper so devoid of all merit in the execution that the
author, conscious of his own unimportance and incapa-
city, seems to have had recourse in despair to the only
expedient which he thought would give him any chance

1762. SMOLLETT AND 'THE BRITON' 155

for engaging the public, to insinuation against the
throne and abuse of the ministry.' ' He has undertaken
the vilest work of the worst incendiary,' Smollett said ;
and much else of the same sort followed in the thirty-
seven other numbers of 'The Briton ' which were pub-
lished. Entinck retaliated with a scornful expression of
' that contempt in which he holds a paper whose exist-
ence depends on forced intei-pretations, ingenious mis-
applications, and insidious provocations.' ^ The public
seems to have shared this contempt. We have it on
the authority of a contemporary that, of ' The Briton,'
' the number prmted was but 250, which was as little
as could be printed with respect to the savuig of the
expense.' ^ The only unj)ortance of ' The Briton ' is m
the fact that it brought John Wilkes mto the field.

Wilkes was now m his thirty-fifth year. Bemg of
a well-to-do dissenting family, and his father, we are
told, being ' so much attached to Revolution principles
that, m order to escape from the possible contagion of a
political stain, the son was not allowed to complete liis
education at either of the English universities,' ^ he had
been strictly brought up, and married, when he was
twenty-two, to a rich and pious lady ten years his
senior, whose mother for some time kept house for the
ill-assorted couple. WUkes, who was noted even as a
schoolboy as 'a sprightly and entertainuig fellow,'
though of ' ugly countenance,' ^ found home life irksome
under such conditions, and soon became a conspicuous
member of the profligate gang of young Whigs and
Tories who ignored politics ui their pursuit of pleasure
whUe Pitt and others of their elders were engrossed in

' The Monitor, No. 360, June 12, 1762.
^ Almon, Review of Lord Elite's Administration, p. 55.
^ Stephens, Memoirs of J. Home Toohe, vol. i. p. 89.
■* Autobiography of the Bev. Dr. Carlyle, p. 168.

156 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. ti.

the game of party. Sir Francis Dashwood and Lord
Sandwich were rivals for the leadership in this lewd
company, and Wilkes hung on to them till he quarrelled
with both, and gave mortal offence to Sandwich by a
practical joke that had the result, for a time, of con-
vincing the blaspheming earl that a baboon which
jumped out of a box and leapt on to his shoulders, in
response to his invocation of the devil, was Satan him-
self.i

Wilkes's private life was at no stage blameless from
a modern viewpoint, and when he became a politician
he cannot be credited with worthier motives than
prompted most of his neighbours. He attached himself
to Pitt, who helped him to a seat in the parliament
elected in 1757, in consideration of his paying the pre-
mier's election expenses at Bath as well as his own at
Aylesbury, and he looked for some more substantial
reward than the honour of being made high sheriff of
Buckinghamshire and colonel of the Bucks regiment
of militia. ' My ambition will ever be,' he wrote, ' to
have my parliamentary conduct approved by the ablest
minister, as well as the first character, of the age. I
live in the hope of doing my country some small ser-
vices at least, and I am sure the only certain way of
doing any is by a steady support of your measures.' ^
Wilkes had influence enough to get Dr. Jolinson's black
servant excused from the sailor- slavery for which he
had been pressed — this favour being asked in 1759 by
Smollett, to whom Jolmson had applied, 'though he
and I were never cater-cousins,' and who said in his
letter, ' You know what matter of animosity the said
Johnson has against you, and I dare say you desire no
other opportmiity of resenting it than that of laying

' Charles Johnstone, Ohrysal, vol. iii. pp. 231-249.
^ Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 239.

1757-1762. WILKES'S PRELIMINAKIES 157

him tinder an obligation.' ^ But it was easier to do
such small services to his neighbours than to obtain
lucrative employment under the crown for himself ; and
Wilkes failed when he apphed first for the ambassador-
ship at Constantinople, and afterwards for the governor-
ship of Quebec, which had just been wrested from the
French, and where ' his ambition,' he said, was ' to have
reconciled the new subjects to the English, and to have
shown the French the advantage of the mild rule of
laws over that of lawless power and despotism.' ^ Wilkes
attributed both failures to the Earl of Bute, now secre-
tary of state, and anxious to bestow all offices of trust
and profit on Tories and Scotchmen ; and, though
Wilkes's patriotism was as honest as that of most men,
it cannot be doubted that it owed much to personal
pique. Had accident so guided him to either course,
he might have continued a mere dissolute man of the
world like Sandwich and Dashwood, or he might have
developed into a ' constitutional ' pohtician in Pitt's
train. Instead of that he started ' The North Briton,'
and became a great demagogue.

' Briton,' it should be noted, was the title that at
that time the Tories of the Bute school chose to apply
to themselves. ' Bom and bred in this country, I glory
in the name of Briton,' they made George III. say, in
opening his first parliament, ' and the peculiar happi-
ness of my life will ever consist in promoting the wel-
fare of a people whose loyalty and warm affection I
consider as the greatest and most permanent security of

1 Boswell, Life of Johnson, ch. x. Johnson's animosity had been
partly caused by WUkes's joke at his expense, with reference to the state-
ment in the Dictionary that ' H seldom, perhaps never, begins any but
the first syllable.' 'The author of this observation,' remarked Wilkes,
' must be a man of quick appre-hension, and of a most compre-hensive
genius.'

« Rae, Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox, p. 17.

158 WIJLKES AND JUNIUS ch. vi.

my throne ; ' and the House of Lords meekly answered,
' We are penetrated with the condescending and endear-
ing manner in which your majesty has expressed your
satisfaction at having received your birth and education
among us. What a lustre does it cast on the name of
Briton, when you, sire, are pleased to esteem it among
your glories ! ' Wilkes, and many others with him,
thought otherwise.

' The Briton ' having appeared on May 29, 1762,
the same day on which Bute formally assumed the
premiership, with Sir Francis Dashwood — who, accord-
ing to Horace Walpole, ' with the familiarity and phrase
of a fishwife, introduced the humours of Wapping
behind the veil of the treasury ' ^ — as his chancellor of
the exchequer and Sandwich as his first lord of the
admiralty, ' The North Briton ' appeared a week later,
on June 5. ' The liberty of the press,' wrote Wilkes in
his first paragraph, ' is the birthright of a Briton, and
is justly esteemed the firmest bulwark of the liberties of
this country. It has been the terror of all bad ministers ;
for their dark and dangerous designs, or their weakness,
inability, and duplicity, have thus been detected, and
shown to the public generally in too strong colours for
them long to bear up against the odium of mankind.'
He went on to acknowledge the good work that had
been done by ' The Monitor,' and to declare himself a
warrior in the same fight. As those he undertook to
do battle with impudently called themselves Britons,
being only Scotchmen, he thought it well to retaliate
by calling himself a North Briton ; but, ' though I am
a North Briton,' he said, 'I will endeavour to write
plain English, and to avoid the numerous Scotticisms
" The Briton " abounds with ; and then, as the world is
apt to mistake, he may be taken for a Scotsman, and I

' Memoirs of the Reign of Oeorge III., vol. i. p. 171.

1762. 'THE BRITON' AKD 'THE NOETH BRITON' 159

shall pass as an Englishman.' Wilkes promised, more-
over, to provide something more interesting and in-
structive than ' this foolish Briton,' that ' proceeds to
produce himself amidst the parade of pompous pro-
fessions and vile alhterations.' ' I thank my stars,' he
added, ' that I am a North Briton, with this almost
singular circumstance belonguig to me, that I am
unplaced and impensioned ; but I hope this reproach
will soon be wiped away, and that I shall no longer be
pointed at by my sneering countrymen.' And in the
second number, ' I caixnot conceal the joy I feel as a
North Briton, and 1 heartily congratulate my dear
countrymen on our having at length accomplished the
^reat, long-sought, and universally national, object of
all our wishes, the planting of a Scotsman at the head
of the English Treasury.' Bute was here roundly
abused by name, and Smollett was more than hinted
at. ' The poor " Briton " deserves something — 1 wUl
not name what — for sacrificing at the shrine of Bute
grammar, conscience, and common sense, for his lord-
ship's glorification.'

There was too much personality, sometimes very
coarse, in ' The North Briton ' ; too much abuse of the
Scotch and their habits ; but it was pungently written,
and it answered its purpose. For the first time in
English journalism public men were openly criticised
and attacked, even ' The Monitor ' having adopted the
old-fashioned pretence of concealment by referring to
the Earl of B-te, Mr. F-x, the Mm— y, and so forth,
mstead of Bute, Fox, and Ministry. There was no
pretence about Wilkes, apart from the transparent sub-
terfuge of his calling himself a North Briton, and his
assumption of more political virtue than he possessed.
In his fifth number, alludmg as he often did afterwards,
to the current scandal as to the too close intimacy

160 WILKES AND JUNroS oh. ti.

between Bute and the king's motlier, he compared the
former to Roger Mortimer and the latter to Queen
Isabella, ' actuated by strong passions, and influenced
by an insolent minister.' A fair sample of his humour
is in the seventh number, where he wrote, ' Some time
since died Mr. John Bull, a very worthy, plain, honest
old gentleman, of Saxon descent. He was choked by
inadvertently swallowing a thistle, which he had placed
by way of ornament on the top of his salad. For many
years before he had enjoyed a remarkable good state of
health.'

Wilkes did not write all ' The North Briton ' him-
self. Several of his friends contributed occasional
articles for him, and his chief assistant was Charles
Churchill, the satirical poet whose misfortune it was to
have been planted in life as a clergyman. Churchill
found verse-writmg easier than prose, and his fierce and
pathetic ' Prophecy of Famine ' was the poetical render-
ing of an article which he wrote for ' The North Briton '
but did not like well enough as such to allow it to be
printed.^ One of Horace Walpole's sneering references
was to ' Wilkes, as spotless as Sallust, and the flamen
Churchill knocking down the foes of Britain with the
statues of the gods.' We may guess that it was
Churchill who wrote the scathing article on men of his
cloth which appeared in the tenth number of ' The
North Briton.' ' The ecclesiastics,' it was there said,
' are an artful, subtle, and powerful body in all coun-
tries. Their eyes, however dim to other things, are
remarkably quick to everything which concerns their
own interests. They are generally proud, revengeful,
and implacable ; and yet most of them have the art to
throw a veil over their evil qualities and establish an
interest in the opinions of the people.'

^ Forster, Historical and Biographical Essays, vol. ii. p. 259.

1762. CHURCHILL AND ' THE NORTH BRITON ' 161

The twelfth number contained some smart criticism
of Dr. Johnson, on whom, four weeks before the article
was written, Lord Bute had bestowed a pension of 300/.
a year. Churchill— if it was Churchill who wrote the
article, as Johnson supposed when he said, ' I called
the fellow a blockhead at first, and I will call him a
blockhead stUl ' ^ — -turned to the Doctor's ' Dictionary '
to see what it said about pensions and pensioners.
' His definition of a pension,' Johnson was cruelly re-
minded, 'is "an allowance made to anyone without an
equivalent : in England it is generally understood to
mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his
coimtry." And under the word " pensioner " we read :
" (I) One who is supported by an allowance paid at
the will of another : a dependent ; (2) A slave of state
hired by a stipend to obey his master." But, with
submission to this great prodigy of learning, I should
think both definitions very erroneous. Is the said Mr.
Johnson "a dependent" ? or is he " a slave of state,
liired by a stipend to obey his master " ? There is,
according to him, no alternative. Is his pension luider-
stood to be " pay given to a state hireling for treason to
his comitry " ? '

If the number containing this attack on Johnson
was written by Churchill, Wilkes had to fight a duel
on account of it — not with Johnson, but -with Lord
Talbot, who was celebrated for his niggardliness in dis-
pensing the ample funds allowed to him for the public
service. ' I must admire many of his lordship's regu-
lations, especially those for the royal kitchen,' it was
scornfully remarked. ' I approve the discharging of so
many turnspits and cooks, who were grown of very
little use. I do not, however, quite like the precedent
of giving them pensions for doing nothing. It was

^ Boswell, ch. xiii.
VOL. I. M

162 WILKES AND JUNIUS oh. vi.

high time to put an end to that too great indulgence in
eating and drinking which went by the name of old
English hospitality, when the House of Commons had
granted a poor niggardly civil list of only 800,000^. I
sincerely venerate his lordship's great abilities, and
deeply regret that they were not employed by govern-
ment in a way more confidential, more suited to his
manly character.' For printing those sneers Wilkes
was challenged to meet Lord Talbot at Bagshot for
mortal combat on October 8, and the duel came off, but
neither party was hurt in the encounter.

' The Briton,' not being deemed strong enough, in
Smollett's hands, to fight against both ' The Monitor '
and ' The North Briton,' another Tory paper, ' The Au-
ditor,' was started on June 10, and edited by Arthur
Murphy, who had entered Lord Bute's service since the
days when he had attacked the Tories in ' The Test.'
But ' The Auditor ' lived only eight months. Its last
number was issued on February 8, 1763, ' The North
Briton ' having, in anticipation of its demise, produced
an epitaph for it ten days before : —

Deep in tliis bog ' The Auditor ' lies still ;

His labours finished, and worn out his quill,

His fires extinguished, and his works unread,

In peace he sleeps with the forgotten dead.

With heath and sedge, oh, may his tomb be dressed,

And his own turf lie light upon his breast.

' The Briton,' surviving its partner by less than a
week, died on February 12. ' The North Briton,' on
the other hand, gained in popularity, and became bolder
in its attacks on Lord Bute's administration every week.
Its general attitude was shown by an article on Novem-
ber 6, 1762, deprecating the prorogation of parliament
before it was informed of the terms on which the Seven
Years' War was being concluded, and condemnino- the

1763. ' THE NORTH BBITON ' AND LOED BUTE 163

government for proposing to take so unpatriotic and
•unconstitutional a step. ' What ! ' Wilkes exclaimed,
' on the eve of a peace, and of such a peace as must
either establish or ruin us for ever (for in our present
situation, loaded as we are with an enormous debt, there
appears no alternative), shall the great council of the
nation be postponed ? True it is that, although they
supply the sinews of the war, they have no right to
make a peace ; but they have an undoubted right of
examining into the peace when made, and, if it shall be
found dishonourable and disadvantageous (a circmn-
stance well deserving serious consideration at this time) ,
they have an undoubted right of calling the advisers of
it to a severe account.' And to emphasise his remarks,
Wilkes aptly applied to Lord Bute the words that
Shakespeare makes Prince John address to Archbishop
Scroop : —

That man that sits within a monarch's heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack ! what mischiefs might he set abroach
In shadow of such greatness ! '

Despite the protests of ' The North Briton,' parlia-
ment was adjourned ; but it reassembled on November
25, in ample time to discuss the conclusion of the Seven
Years' War ; and, notwithstanding Pitt's eloquent de-
nunciations, the result of royal and courtly pressure
upon members was that the ministerial policj- was
approved by a majority of five to one. ' Now indeed,
my son is king ! ' George III.'s mother exclaimed on
hearing of the result : and George III.'s scheme of ab-
solutism was undoubtedly advanced by the undignified
peacemaking ; but the nation, especially the citizens of
London, did not agree with the House of Commons,

' Senry IV., second part, act iv. scene 2.

M 2

164 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. ti.

and Bute's unpopularity so increased that he was forced
to resign the premiership on April 8, 1763. ' The North
Briton ' had had no small share in bringing about his
downfall, and much exultation on the subject might
have been looked for in the No. 45 which was due on
the very next day, the 9th of the month.

No. 45 was not pubHshed till the 23rd, however,
and then it dealt with other matters. It was not mi-
usual in those times for the weekly and other papers to
issue occasional supplements or special numbers treating
of questions that had arisen in the interval of the regu-
lar issues, or were thought more suitable for separate
treatment ; and of this sort was ' A North Briton Ex-
traordmary,' of exceptional length, which was printed
and ready for publication on April 7, but, for some
reason not given, was suppressed. It was an elaborate
and outspoken criticism of the pohcy of the East India
Company, under which CHve and his associates had
lately begun to acquire a new empire for England, and
was probably written or inspired by Wilkes's friend,
William Beckford, who was now both lord mayor and
member of parUament for London, and a great authority
on East Indian concerns. Wilkes and his friends appear
to have thought it best at the last moment, and in view
of the impending political crisis at home, to hold back
this journalistic firebrand. At any rate it was not
published ; and, more than that, instead of issuing his
No. 45 on the proper day for it, Wilkes prepared an
advertisement, which appeared in the daily papers of
April 13, stating that, ' in the present unsettled and
fluctuating state of the administration, " The North
Briton " is really fearful of falling into involuntary
errors, and he does not wish to mislead ; all his reason-
ings have been built on the strong foundation of facts,
and he is not yet informed of the whole interior state of

1763. 'THE NOETH BRITON' AND LOED BUTE 165

government with sucli minute precision as now to ven-
ture the submitting of lais crude ideas of the present
political crisis to the discerning pubHc'

' The Scottish minister,' Wilkes added, ' has indeed
retired. Is his influence at an end ? or does he stUl
govern by the three wretched tools of his power who,
to their indelible infamy, have supported the most
odious of his measures — the late ignominious peace, and
the wicked extension of the arbitrary mode of excise ?
" The North Briton" has been steady in his opposition
to a single insolent, incapable, despotic minister, and is
equally ready, in the service of his country, to combat
the triple-headed Cerberean administration, if the Scot
is to assume that motley form. By him every arrange-
ment to this hour has been made. It therefore seems
clear to a demonstration that he intends only to retire
into that situation which he held before he took the
seals — I mean the dictatrag to every part of the king's
administration. " The North Briton " desires to be
imderstood as having pledged himself a firm and in-
trepid assertor of the rights of his fellow- subjects and of
the liberties of Whigs and Englishmen.'

That announcement was tolerably exphcit, and may
be accepted as truthful. On first hearing of Lord
Bute's resignation of the premiership, Wilkes may have
hoped that a real change of mhiisterial policy would
follow, especially as the new premier was George Gren-
viUe, the younger brother of Earl Temple, who was
Wilkes's firm friend of long standing. Pitt, Temple,
and others were evidently anxious to believe that Gren-
ville was placed at the head of the government in order
that a better policy than Bute had followed might be
entered upon.

They were soon undeceived. Parliament was pro-
j-ogued on Tuesday, April 19, and on the morning of

166 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. vi.

that day "Wilkes, calling on Temple, found that Pitt
was with him, and that they were discussing the king's
speech, about to be read, of which Temple had obtained
an early copy from his brother. Wilkes joined m the
talk, and all three came to the conclusion that the
document was dishonest and mischievous, and be-
tokened most alarming intentions on the part of the
government. Wilkes went home and expressed his
friends' views as well as his own, though without their
sanction, in the bold review of the royal message, and
of the general situation, which he then wrote, and
which was issued on the following Saturday as No. 45
of ' The North Briton.' Here are all the more im-
portant passages of this memorable article, and rather
more than half of the whole, with the original punctua-
tion and italics, and the Latin motto, which, according
to the custom of those days, served as a text or pre-
face :

Cfenus Orationis atrox et vehemens, cv.i opponitur lenitatis et man-
suetudinis . — Cicero.

The King's Speech has always been considered by the legislature, and
by the public at large, as the Speech of the Minister. It has regularly, at
the beginning of every session of parliament, been referred by both houses
to the consideration of a committee, and has been generally canvassed
with the utmost freedom, when the minister of the crown has been ob-
noxious to the nation. The ministers of this free country, conscious of
the undoubted privileges of so spirited a people, and with the terrors of
parliament before their eyes, have ever been cautious, no less with regard
to the matter, than to the expressions of speeches, which they have advised
the sovereign to make from the tlurone, at the opeiilng of each session.
They well knew that an honest house of parliament, true to their trust,
could not fail to detect the fallacious arts, or to remonstrate against th&
daring acts of violence committed by any minister. The Speech at the
close of the session has ever been considered as the most secii,re method of
promulgating the favourite court creed among the vulgar ; because the
parliament which is the constitutional guardian of the liberties of the
people, has in this case no opportunity of remonstrating, or of impeaching
any wicked servant of the crown.

This week has given the public the most abandoned instance of minis-
terial effrontery ever attempted to bo imposed on mankind. The minister's

1763. NO. 45 OF 'THE NORTH BRITON' 167

speech of last Tuesday is not to be paralleled in the annals of this country.
I am in doubt whether the imposition is greater on the sovereign or on
the nation. Every friend of his country must lament that a prince of so
many great and amiable qualities, whom England truly reveres, can be
brought to give the sanction of his sacred name to the most odious
measures, and to the most unjustifiable public declaratioas, from a throne
ever renowned for truth, honour, and imsullied virtue. I am sure all
foreigners, especially tlie king of Prussia, will hold the minister in con-
tempt and abhorrence. He has made our sovereign declare, My expecta-
tions have been fully answered by the happy effects which the several allies of
my crown Iiave derived from this salutary measure of the definitive Treaty.
The powers at war with my good brother, the king of Prussia, have been in-
duced to agree to such terms of accommodation, as that great prince has
approved ; and the success which has attended my negotiation, has necessarily
aiid im,mediately diffused theblessings of peace throughout every part of Europe.
The infamous fallacy of this whole sentence is apparent to all mankind ;
for, it is known that the king of Prussia did not barely appn-ove, but abso-
lutely dictated, as conqueror, every article of the terms of peace. No
advantage of any kind has accrued to that magnanimous prince from our
negotiation, but he was basely deserted by the Scottish prime -minister of
England. He was known by every court in Europe to be scarcely on
better terms of friendsliip here than at Vienna ; and he was betrayed by
us in the treaty of peace. Wliat a strain of insolence, therefore, is it in a
minister to lay claim to what he is conscious all his efforts tended to prevent,
and meanly to arrogate to himself a share in the fame and glory of one of
the greatest princes the world has ever seen ? . . .

The Preliminary Articles of Peace were such as have drawn the con-
tempt of mankind on our wretched negotiators. All our most valuable
conquests were agreed to be restored, and the East India Company would
have been infallibly ruined by a single article of this fallacious and bane-
ful negotiation. No hireling of the minister has been hardy enough to
dispute this ; yet the minister himself has made our sovereign declare, the
satisfaction which lie felt at the approaching re-establishment of peace upon
conditions so honourable to his crown, and so beneficial to his people. As to
the entire approbation of ]jarUament, which is so vainly boasted of, the
world kno5vs how that was obtained. The large debt on the Civil List,
already above half a year in arrear, shows pretty clearly the transactions
of the winter. . . .

The minister cannot forbear, even in the King's Speech, insulting us
with a dull repetition of the word (economy. I did not expect so soon to
have seen that word again, after it had been so lately exploded, and more
than once, by a most numerous audience, hissed off the stage of our Eng-
lish theatres. It is held in derision by the voice of the people, and every
tongue loudly proclaims the universal contempt, in which these empty
professions are held by this nation. Let the public be informed of a single
instance of ceconomy, except indeed in the household. Is a regiment,
which was completed as to its complement of oflScers on the Tuesday, and

168 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. ti.

broke on the Thwrsday, a proof of (economy .?.... Is it not notorious,
that in the reduction of the army, not the least attention has been paid
to it ? Many unnecessary expenses have been incurred, only to increase
the power of the crown, that is, to create more lucrative jobs for the
creatures of the minister. . . . Lord Ligonier ia now no longer at the
head of the army ; but Lord Bute in effect is ; I mean that every prefer-
ment given by the crown will be found still to be obtained by his enor-
mous influence, and to be bestowed only on the creatures of the Scottish
faction. The nation is still in the same deplorable state, while lie governs,
and can make the tools of his power pursue the same odious measures.
Such a retreat, as he intends, can only mean that personal indemnity,
which, I hope, guilt will never find from an injured nation. The negotia-
tions of the late inglorious peace and the excise, will haunt him wherever
he goes, and the terrors of the just resentment which he must be sure to
meet from a brave and insulted people, and which must finally crush him,
will be for ever before his eyes.

In vain wUl such a minister, or the foul dregs of his power, the tools
of corruption and despotism, preach up in the speech that spirit of concord,
and that obedience to the laws, which is essential to good order. They have
sent the spirit of discm-d through the land, and I wUl prophecy, that it
will never be extinguished, but by the extinction of their power. Is the
spirit of concord to go hand in hand with the Peace and Excise, through
this nation ? Is it to be expected between an insolent Exciseman, and
a peer, gentleman, freeholder, or farmer, whose private houses are now
made liable to be entered and searched at pleasure 1 Gloucestershire,
Herefordshire, and in general all the cyder counties, are not surely the
several co^mties, which are alluded to in the speech. The spirit of concord
has not gone forth among them ; but the spirit of liberty has, and a noble
opposition has been given to the wicked instruments of oppression. A
nation as sensible as the English, will see that a spirit of concord, when
they are oppressed, means a tame submission to injury, and that a spirit
of liberty ought then to arise, and I am sure ever will, in proportion to the
weight of the grievance they feel. Every legal attempt of a contrary ten-
dency to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable resistance, war-
ranted by the spirit of the English constitution.

A despotic minister will always endeavour to dazzle his prince with
high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honour of the croimi, which the
minister will make a parade of firmly maintaining. I wish as much as
any man in the kingdom to see the honour of the croivn maintained in a
manner truly becoming Royalty. I lament to see it sunk even to prosti-
tution. What a shame was it to see the security of this country in point
of military force, complimented away, contrary to the opinion of Royalty
itself, and sacrificed to the prejudices and to the ignorance of a set of
people, the most unfit, from every consideration, to be consulted on a
matter relative to the security of the J'lOKseo/B'auojjer .^ .... Is it meant
to assert the honour of the croivn only against the united wishes of a loyal
and afi'ectionate people, founded in a happy experience of the talents.

1763. NO. 45 OF 'THE NORTH BRITON' 169

ability, integrity and virtue of those, who have had the glory of redeeming
the country from bondage and ruin, in order to support, by every art of

corruption and intimidation, a weak, disjointed, incapable set of 1

will call them anything but ministers — by whom the Favourite still medi-
tates to rule this kingdom with a rod of iron ?

The Stuart line has ever been intoxicated with the slavish doctrines of
the absolute, ind-ependent, unlimited power of the crown. Some of that
line were so weakly advised, as to endeavour to reduce them into practice ;
but the English nation was too spirited to suffer the least encroachment
on the ancient liberties of this kingdom. The king of England is only the
first magistrate of this country ; but is invested by law with the whole
executive power. He is, however, responsible to his people for the due
execution of the royal functions, in the choice of ministers, &c., equally
with the meanest of his subjects in his particular duty. The personal
■character of our present amiable sovereign makes us easy and happy that
so great a power is lodged in such hands ; but the foAiourite has given too
just cause for him to escape the general odium. The prerogative of the
crown is to exert the constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way, not
-of blind favour and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. ■ This is the
spirit of our constitution. The people too have their prerogative, and I
hope the fine words of Dkyden will be engraven on our hearts,

Freedom is the English subject's Prerogative.

Straightforward and outspoken as were the criti-
cisms and complaints thus offered by Wilkes in No. 45
of the ' North Briton,' he had used language almost as
bold before. In the then state of the law and of
■opinion about royal prerogative, ministerial responsi-
bility, and parliamentary privilege, however, there were
technical grounds for seeing in his stingmg condemna-
tion of the ministers as betrayers of the nation, and of
the king as their dupe, a punishable offence, and an
opportunity of making the writer suffer for his former
misdeeds as well as for this new attack upon them.
The king and his advisers had some reason to be angry,
and might have safely retaliated. As it happened, they
recklessly broke the law in their anxiety to wreak ven- '
geance on a supposed law-breaker. Hence complete
victory came to Wilkes in the end ; but it was long
'delayed and hardly won.

170 WILKES AND JUMUS ch. ti.

The article having been published on Saturday, April
23, the Earl of Halifax, the senior secretary of state,
applied on Monday to the law ofiicers of the crown for
advice as to the course to be pursued against those who
had written, published, and circulated it. On Wednes-
day the law officers repHed that the article was ' a most
infamous and seditious libel, tending to inflame the
minds and alienate the affections of the people from his
majesty, and to excite them to traitorous insurrections
against his government, and therefore punishable as
a misdemeanour of the highest nature in due course
of law by indictment or information, which latter
method of prosecution is the most usual and proper,
in obedience to the commands of his majesty, when
signified by a secretary of state.' On Tuesday, how-
ever, without waitmg for that report, Halifax had
issued a general warrant ' to search for the authors and
printers of a treasonable and seditious paper, entitled
" The North Briton," No. 45, and them having found
to apprehend and seize, together with their papers,
and bring them before him to be examined.' On the
strength of that, George Kearsley, the publisher, and
Balfe, the printer, were at once arrested, and certain
documents in the handwritings of "Wilkes and Churchill
were seized ; but these latter were not interfered with
until Saturday the 30th, when WUkes was taken into
custody, and by a characteristic device enabled Churchill
to escape. While Wilkes was in altercation with the
king's messengers, to whom he pointed out that as a
member of parliament he was privileged from arrest,
Churchill, who was not identified by the officers,
entered the room. 'Good-morrow, Mr. Thompson,''
said Wilkes, who himself gleefully told the story.
' How does Mrs. Thompson do to-day ? Does she dine
in the country ? ' The huit was promptly taken. ' Mr.

1763. THE ARRESTING OF WILKES 171

Churchill,' according to Wilkes, ' thanked me, said she
then waited for him, that he had only come for a
moment to ask me how I did, and almost directly took
his leave. He went home unmediately, secured all his
papers, and retired into the country. The messengers
could never get intelHgence where he was.' Having
thus saved his friend, Wilkes allowed the officers to
take hun from his house ia Great George Street, where
this scene occurred, to Whitehall. There he was ex-
amiaed by Lord Halifax and by Lord Egremont, the
other secretary of state, and after that he was sent
to the Tower, his house being presently searched, and
all papers hkely to mcrimiaate him being unlawfully
taken possession of. His friends at once applied for a
writ of habeas corpus, but he was in prison for a week
before the matter could be brought up in the Court of
Common Pleas, where the judge at once ordered his
discharge, without prejudice to the action against him,
but on the ground that, as a member of parliament, he
ought not to have been arrested.^

That fortnight's series of blunders and illegalities
formed the prelude to a ten years' struggle, of which,
when it was really only half over, ia 1769, Burke said :
' Thus ended the fifth act of this tragi-comedy ; a
tragi-comedy acted by his majesty's servants, at the
desire of several persons of quahty, for the benefit of
Mr. Wilkes, and at the expense of the constitution.'
Burke's last clause was only correct in one sense. The
tragi-comedy was expensive enough, in money as well
as reputation, to those who produced it, but the con-
stitution in the end gained instead of losing by the

' A complete Collection of tlie genuine Papers and Letters in the Case of
Jolvn Wilkes (Paris, 1767). These incidents and those which followed
are set forth in detail in Mr. Rae's Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox, the seventh
chapter of May's ConsUtiUional History, and other works.

172 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. vr.

business. The system of general warrants, an illegal
survival from Star Chamber days, was finally dis-
credited, to the great advantage of all classes of the
community, with the exception of arbitrary usurpers
of power in defiance of the law ; and many other
important benefits ensued. The liberty of the press,
especially in the full sense of the term, was far more
firmly established than it had ever been before, and
newspaper enterprise was largely developed through
the advance towards complete independence in news-
paper writing which was now eflfected. The story is
full of interest, and of great importance in many ways.
Only the chief items in it, however, need be briefly
mentioned here.

Released from the Tower, Wilkes at once, with sub-
stantial help from Lord Temple and other friends,
instituted proceedings against the government for his
unlawful imprisonment and for the fraudulent seizure
of his papers. On this suit, after many delays, 5,000^.
damages were awarded him, and as Kearsley and Balfe,
his publisher and pr'inter, Entinck and others connected
with ' The Monitor,' and several more, who, with even
less excuse, had been dealt with under Lord Halifax's
general warrant of April 26, followed his example, it
was admitted by Lord North that the total of the costs
and damages which the government had to pay for its
lawless folly amounted to 100,000/.

Concurrently with this action for damages, Wilkes
carried on his war with the government in other ways ;
and his vanity, flattered by his increased popularity
among the citizens of London, who had made a hero
of him long before, led him, against the advice of Lord
Temple and other friends, into rash courses that
brought him unnecessary trouble. While awaiting his
trial for libel, which was tardily proceeded with in legal

1763. WILKES'S WAR AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT 173

form after the failure of the attemj)t to imprison him
illegally, and which would probably have been dropped
had no fresh provocation been offered, he indiscreetly
set up in his own house a prmting press from which,
as no tradesman would take the risk of working under
him, he reissued the back ninnbers of ' The North
Briton,' with notes, and proposed to continue the series,
one number of which actually appeared on November
12. Yet more indiscreetly, he issued from this private
press handbills and other matter for his own and his
friends' amusement ; one foolish undertaking, for which
he can hardly be excused, being the putting in type of
an ' Essay on Woman,' an indecent parody of Pope's
' Essay on Man,' which had been written some years
before by Thomas Potter, the coarse-minded and pro-
fligate son of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of this
silly and offensive production only thirteen copies were
printed, and none were pubhshed ; but one was stolen,
and, as we shall see, made malicious use of by Wilkes's
sometime associate and present enemy. Lord Sandwich,
who had succeeded Lord Egremont as secretary of
state.

When parliament met, after a long recess, on No-
vember 15, Wilkes was in his place, eager to call atten-
tion to the breach of privilege that had been committed
by his arrest and imprisonment. He was forestalled
by a motion which Lord North was put up by Gren-
ville to propose, ' That the paper entitled " The North
Briton, No. 45," is a false, scandalous, and seditious
libel, containing expressions of the most unexampled
insolence and contumely towards his majesty, the
grossest aspersions upon both houses of parliament,
and the most audacious defiance of the authority of the
whole legislature, and most manifestly tending to
alienate the affections of the people from his majesty,

1 74 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. ti.

to witlidraw them from their obedience to the laws of
the realm, and to incite them to traitorous insurrec-
tions against his majesty's government.' A hot debate
ensued, during which, as Horace Walpole tells us,
' Mr. Wilkes, with all the impartiality in the world, and
with the phlegm of an Areopagite, sat and heard the
whole matter discussed, and now and then put in a
word, as if the whole affair did not concern him.' ^ The
house accepted the motion by a large majority, despite
the arguments of Pitt and others ; it also ordered that
No. 45 should be burned by the common hangman ;
and shortly afterwards, stultifying all its previous
assertions of exclusive parliamentary control in such
matters, and making a valuable concession to the
liberty of the press, the object being to open the way
for more vengeance than it could itself wreak, it re-
solved ' that privilege of parliament does not extend to
the case of writing and publishing seditious libels, nor
ought to be allowed to obstruct the ordinary course of
law in the speedy and effectual prosecution of so
heinous and dangerous an offence.' ^ The hangman's
task was interfered with by a mob which met him on
the appointed day, December 3, outside the Royal Ex-
change, tore the copy of No. 45 out of his hands, bore
it in triiimph to Temple Bar, and there, in lieu of it,
threw a jack-boot and a petticoat, as emblems of Lord
Bute and the king's mother, into a bonfire.^ Of the
graver resolutions of the House of Commons, one was
acted upon by the Court of King's Bench in February
1764. The other it enforced itself on January 19,
by a vote depriving Wilkes of his seat as member for
Aylesbury.

' Horace WalpoWs Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 131.
^ Parliamentary History, vol. xv. pp. 1362-1378 ; Commons' Journals,
vol. xxix. p. 689.

' Horace Walpole's Memoirs, vol. i, p. 330.

1764. WILKES'S EXPULSION FROM PARLIAMENT 175

The government had intended that Wilkes's expul-
sion should immediately follow the resolution condemn-
ing him in November. But in the course of the debate
on that resolution, Samuel Martin, a ministerial under-
ling, had used such language about Wilkes that it led
to a duel, in which Wilkes was so seriously wounded
that his life was for some time in danger. He went to
Paris, where his daugher was living, and sent thence a
medical certificate to excuse his non-compliance with
an order of the house for his attendance. After wait-
ing two months for his recovery, however, the house
refused to wait longer, and he was expelled in his
absence.

He was also absent, for the same reason, on Feb-
ruary 21, when the action against him which had been
commenced in the Court of King's Bench came on for
hearing. In this action he was charged, not with the
original pubhcation of No. 45, but with the oflFence of
reprinting it, and also with the printing and publishing
of the ' Essay on Woman,' which that notorious profli-
gate Lord Sandwich had taken upon himself to read in
the House of Peers,^ and for which he had been con-
demned by vote of the house, coupled with a resolution
that he should be prosecuted for the ' obscene libel.'
Though he was unable to appear and defend himself in
court, a form of trial was gone through, he was found
guilty, and soon afterwards, on an allegation of contu-
macy, he was outlawed.

There is clear evidence that all these outrages were
perpetrated at the direct instigation of King George III.,

' ' The Beggar's Opera being performed at Covent Garden Theatre soon
after this event,' says Horace Walpole, ' the whole audience, when Mac-
heath says, " That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me, I own surprises me,"
burst out into an applause of appreciation, and the nickname of Jemmy
Twitcher stuck by the earl so as almost to occasion the disuse of his title.' —
Memoirs, vol. i. p. 314.

176 WILKES AND JUNroS ch. vi.

and of Lord Bute and other courtiers wliom Wilkes had
offended. ' Hath not his spirit dared oppose,' Churchill
had mockingl)'- asked on their behalf,

Our dearest measures ? made our name
Stand forward on the roll of shame ?
Hath he not won the vulgar tribes
By scorning menaces and bribes ?
And proving that his darling cause
Is of their liberties and laws
To stand the champion ? '

' Wilkes will be demolished whether he comes home
or stays abroad,' one of the courtiers. Lord Barrington,
had written.^ Wilkes was not demolished, but he
stayed abroad until the time arrived for him to turn
the tables on his enemies, and — as far as he could — to
set himself right with the world.

The contemptible Grenville administration gave
place to the Rockingham administration, and that in
its turn to the Grafton administration — of which Pitt,
now Earl of Chatham, was the real head, in so far as
the king, whose power was being increased by each of
these changes, allowed — during the four years of
Wilkes's absence. Notwithstanding his outlawry, he
returned to London in March 1768, and moved about
freely ; but though Lord Chatham was friendly, he
could not get the sentences against him reversed.
' The ministers are embarrassed to the last degree how
to act with regard to Wilkes,' wrote the Bishop of
Carlisle. ' It seems they are afraid to press the king for
his pardon, as that is a subject his majesty will not
easily hear the least mention of ; and they are appre-

' The Duellist, written on the occasion of Wilkes's duel with Martin.
In another poem, The Conference, Churchill had said,

What if ten thousand Butea and Hollands bawl ?
One Wilkes hath made a large amends for all.
' Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 271.

1768. ' WILKES AND LIBERTY i ' 177

hensive, if he has it not, that the mob of London will
rise in his favour, which God forbid ! ' ^ The mob did
not rise, but it favoured his candidature for a seat in
the new parliament that was elected in this month.
He contested the city of London, but was defeated by a
small majority ; and next week he contested the county
of Middlesex, when he won by a large majority. Those
who had shouted ' Wilkes and No. 45 ! ' in 1763, now
shouted ' Wilkes and Liberty ! ' ' It is a barren season,'
Horace Walpole wrote, ' for all but cabalists who can
compound, divide, multiply No. 45 forty-five thousand
different ways. I saw in the papers to-day that some-
how or other this famous number and the number of
the beast in the Revelations is the same — an observa-
tion from which different persons will draw different
conclusions.' ^

Before parliament opened, WUkes applied to the
Court of King's Bench to have his outlawry reversed.
This was done in May, after he had been for a short
time in custody, from which the mob once rescued him,
and during which, he having voluntarily surrendered
himself, there was much rioting and collision between
the military and the populace ; but on the old charge
of publishing No. 45, and ' An Essay on Woman,' he
was sentenced to twenty-two months confinement in
gaol, and fined 1,000Z. While he was in prison his
friend and disciple, William Bingley, resumed ' The
North Briton,' of which No. 47 appeared on May 10,
and which was continued in a clumsy and rowdy way,
with interruptions, for a few years.' Bingley, however,
had to do much of his editing from the King's Bench

' GrenvUle Papers, vol. iii. p. 241.
^ Horace Walpole^s Correspcmdenee, vol. v. p. 111.
' Another North Briton continuation had been attempted in 1764 but
this was a plagiarism of the title, and Wilkes had nothing to do with it.
VOL. I. N

178 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. vi.

prison, to whicli he was committed in November ; and
several other Wilkites, as they came to be called, were
imprisoned in these troubled times. ^

Wilkes himself, in December, while he was in gaol,
published in ' The St. James's Chronicle ' a letter of
Lord Weymouth's—giving orders for the military
attack that had been made on the mob that sided with
him at the time of his committal to prison — which, he
said, ' shows how long a hellish project can be brooded
over by some infernal spirits without one moment's
remorse.' For this great piece of journalistic boldness,
Wilkes, whose election as member for Middlesex had
not before been taken notice of, as he had not been able
to come out of gaol and claim his seat, was brought to
the bar of the House of Commons, and, on February 3,
1769, a second time expelled, all the more angrily
because, when called upon to defend himself, he had
exclaimed, ' Whenever a secretary of state shall dare
to write so bloody a scroll, I will through life dare to
write such prefatory remarks, as well as to make my
appeal to the nation on the occasion.' The younger
Pitt, Burke, Lord Mayor Beckford, even his old perse-
cutor George Grenville, and others argued that the libel
on Lord Weymouth, however punishable by a court
of law, was not a matter for parliament to deal with ;
but the government obtained a majority of 219 ao-ainst
137.^

A fresh election to fill up the vacant Middlesex seat
was ordered, and on February 16 Wilkes was re-elected
without opposition. Next day the House of Commons
declared the election void, and a new writ was issued.

' It was to such imprisonments as these that Margin referred in the
passage from Foote's Bankrupt quoted in the last chapter as ' the very life
and soul of our trade. '

'^ Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 646.

1769-1770. THE WILKITE CONTROVERSY 179

Wilkes was again returned, to be again expelled in
March, and the farce, or, as Burke called it, the tragi-
comedy, was once more played through.

Wilkes, being still a prisoner, now for a short time
left his friends to carry on the agitation. In the city
of London, of which he had been elected an alderman,
subscriptions were raised for him, and meetings,
growing stormier and stormier, were held to advocate
his claims. Even the House of Peers, on Lord Chat-
ham's motion, took his case into consideration. ' With
one party,' Chatham said of Wilkes. ' he is a patriot of
the first magnitude, with the other the vilest incendiary.
For my own part I consider him merely and indi£ferently
as an English subject, possessed of certain rights which
the law has given him, and which the laws alone can
take from him.' Lord Chancellor Camden declared
that ' for some time he had beheld with silent indigna-
tion the arbitrary measures the ministry were pursuing,'
and that, ' as to the iacapacitating vote, he considered
it as a direct attack upon the first principles of the
constitution.' ^ The House of Peers rejected Lord Chat-
ham's motion, and also one to like effect proposed by
Lord Rockingham in February 1770 ; and the House of
Commons was as obdurate when appealed to by Sir
Oeorge Savile, Dowdeswell, and others.

The London citizens then came yet more to the front.
They had petitioned the king in 1769 without receiving
an answer. They now petitioned again, and, asserting
their right to personal audience with the sovereign, sent
Lord Mayor Beckford, the sheriffs, and two hundred
aldermen and liverymen, to declare ' that the majority
of the House of Commons have deprived your people
of their dearest rights — they have done a deed more

' Parliamentary Sistory, vol. xvi. pp. 653-666 ; Oentlemari's Magazine,
January 1770.

■s 2

180 WILKES AND JUNIUS ca. y/.

ruinous in its consequences than the levying of ship-
money by Charles I. or the dispensing power assumed
by James II.,' and to request his majesty ' to restore the-
constitutional government and quiet of his people by
dissolving the parliament and removing his evil minis-
ters for ever from his councils.' King George answered
that such a request was one ' which he could not but
consider as disrespectful to himself, injurious to parlia-
ment, and irreconcilable to the principles of the consti-
tution,' and then, it is reported, ' turned round to his
courtiers, and burst out laughing.' ^ That was on March
14. On May 23 the lord mayor was sent up with a
bolder petition, and, when the king again scoffed at it,
replied with the yet bolder words which are inscribed in
letters of gold on the monument that the grateful citizens
erected in honour of him who had spoken them. Beck-
ford died a week afterwards, partly in consequence of
the excitement thus forced upon him in his old age ;
but Wilkes lived to achieve a series of victories, and to
obtain as much redress for the wrongs done to him
as was possible.

The term of his imprisonment being completed in
April 1770, he was able to take a personal share in the
city's further petitionmg of the kmg. In 1771 he was-
elected sheriff of London and Middlesex, and in 1774
he was made lord mayor, out of his turn, and as a marked
protest against the tyranny of court and parliament.
In the same year, the House of Commons from which
he had been four times expelled having been dissolved
he was once more returned to the new one as member
for Middlesex, and his enemies did not venture ao-ain to
keep him out of his seat. Thereupon he lost no time
in calling for a reversal of the policy adopted towards
him. In February 1775 he moved that the resolution

' Bockingham Memoirs, vol. xi. p. 174.

1770-1797. THE END OF WILKES 181

declaring his incapacity should be expunged from the
journals of the house, ' as subversive of the rights of
the whole body of electors.' This being refused, he
repeated his motion in 1776, in 1777, in 1779, in 1781,
and finally in 1782, when it was agreed to. He lived
on till 1797, but his later history, in some respects
discreditable to him, does not here concern us. About
one very important service done by him to journalism
in 1771, when, in his office of alderman and magistrate,
he helped materially to establish the claim of news-
papers to report the proceedings of parhament, some-
thing will be said hereafter. Save in this respect, his
own share in newspaper history had all but ceased with
the publication of ' The North Briton ' and the settle-
ment of the quarrels growing out of the famous No. 45.

Before these quarrels were settled a far abler writer
than Wilkes had appeared to continue and extend the
journalistic work in which accident, rather than his own
talents or wisdom, had made him so conspicuous, ^'^hat
sort of a man Junius was no one can tell, for he
wrapped himself in a veil of anonymity which has never
been removed, and, as he said, ' If I am a vain man, my
gratification lies within a narrow circle ; I am the sole
depository of my own secret, and it shall perish with
me.' ^ But as a critic and a satirist he was in every
way superior to Wilkes.

If Junius was Sir Philip Francis, he was in his
twenty-sixth year when he wrote his first known letter

' Letters of Junius ; dedication. About the controversy that has gone on
■during more than a century as to the identity of Junius it is unnecessary
for me to say anything ; and his letters are so well known and so easily
accessible that I need do no more than briefly indicate above their place
in political journalism, and note in the next chapter their importance as
• contributions to newspaper progress. Perhaps the opinion now generally
held, on the authority of Maoaulay and others, that Junius was Sir PhUip
Francis, is correct.

182 WILKES AND JUNIUS ce. ti.

to ' The Public Advertiser,' which, as we shall presently
see, was the most influential of the daily papers pub-
lished at this time, and which was to acquire much
fresh influence through his contributions. That letter,
dated April 28, 1767, was signed Poplicola, one of the
many pseudonyms that this writer adopted — others
being Anti-Sejanus junior, Mnemon, Bifrons, Atticus,
Lucius, and Brutus — before he decided that he would
be known to his contemporaries and posterity as Junius.
It was a bitter attack on Lord Chatham, who had lately
taken oflice again as prime minister and with Lord
Bute as his ally, or, as Poplicola averred, had brought
' all the artifices, the intrigues, the hypocrisy, and the
impudence of his past life ' to a climax, in that, after
he had ' spent years in declaiming against the pernicious
influence of a favourite,' he had ' taken that favourite
to his bosom, and made him the only partner of his
power.' ^ Of Bute he said two months later : ' To
create or foment confusion, to sacrifice the honour of a
king, or to destroy the happiness of a nation, requires
no talent, but a natural itch for doing mischief We
have seen it performed for years successively, with a
wantonness of triumph, by a man who had neither
abilities nor personal interest, nor even common per-
sonal courage. It has been possible for a notorious
coward, skulking under a petticoat, to make a great
nation the prey of his avarice and ambition. But I
trust the time is not very distant when we shall see
him dragged forth from his retirement, and forced to
answer severely for all the mischiefs he hath brought
upon us.' ^

From these sentences it will be seen that Junius
was, from the first, a master of invective. He was not

' Miscellaneous Letters of Junms, No. 1.
= Ibid., No. 3.

1767-1769. THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS ]83

a consistent critic or a persistent hater. He denounced
or tolerated, praised or vilified, if not as the humour
took him, at any rate as what we may assume to be
personal interests prompted him ; and his use of various
pseudonyms enabled him to vary his opinions without
openly stultifying himself. Though in most particulars
he showed ultimate and accurate knowledge of -facts,
thereby adding greatly to the force of his attacks,
moreover, he sometimes wrote ignorantly and on hear-
say evidence. In his first reference to Wilkes, for in-
stance, in April 1768, he spoke of him as ' a man of
most infamous character in private life, indicted for a
libel against the king's person, solemnly tried by his
peers according to the laws of the land, and found
guilty, ' who, ' without a single qualification, either
moral or political,' had been suffered by indolent and
incapable ministers, 'perhaps in consequence of a secret
compact with him,' ' to throw the metropolis into a
flame, to offer new outrages to his sovereign, and at
last to force his way into parliament ' ; ^ and in March
1769 he spoke of him as ' the favourite of his country,
whose pardon would have been accepted with gratitude,
whose pardon would have healed all our divisions.' ^

When Junius wrote as Junius, however, he was
generally careful to express views that did not con-
tradict one another, whether he was discussing the
character and conduct of Wilkes or any other subject.
In the letters that, under his favourite designation,
he addressed either to ' The Public Advertiser ' or to
Wilkes in private, he made . no attempt to conceal the
personal dislike, and even contempt, with which he
regarded the member for Middlesex, while he very
clearly laid down sound constitutional maxims ; and

' Miscellaneous Letters of Junius, No. 17.
' Letters of Junius, No. 8.

184 WILKES AND JUNIUS CH. vr.

his statement of these was made all the more impressive
by its superciliousness. Denouncing the Duke of Graf-
ton, he said, ' You have degraded the royal dignity into
a base, dishonourable competition with Mr. Wilkes ; nor
had you abilities to carry even this last contemptible
triumph over a private man without the grossest viola-
tion of the fundamental laws of the constitution and
rights of the people.' ^ And he addressed the king
himself in language yet more emphatic. ' Mr. Wilkes,'
he said, ' brought with himi into politics the same
liberal sentiments by which his private conduct had
been directed, and seemed to think that, as there are
few excesses in which an English gentleman may not
be permitted to indulge, the same latitude was allowed
him in the choice of his political principles and in the
spirit of maintaining them. In the earnestness of his
zeal he suffered some unwarrantable insinuations to
escape him. He said more than moderate men would
justify, but not enough to entitle him to the honour
of your majesty's personal resentment. The rays of
royal indignation collected upon him served only to
illuminate, and could not consume. Animated by the
favour of the people on one side, and heated by perse-
cution on the other, his views and sentiments changed
with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now
an enthusiast.' ' Is this,' he asked scornfully, ' a con-
tention worthy of a king ? Are you not sensible how
much the meanness of the cause gives an air of ridicule
to the serious difficulties into which you have been
betrayed ? The destruction of one man has been now,
for many years, the sole object of your government ;
and, if there can be anything still more disgraceful, we
have seen, for such an object, the utmost influence of
the executive power, and every ministerial artifice,

' Letters of Junius, No. 15.

1769. THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS 185

■exerted without success. Nor can you ever succeed
unless he should be imprudent enough to forfeit the
protection of those laws to which you owe your crown,
or unless your ministers should persuade you to make
it a question of force alone, and try the whole strength
•of government in opposition to the people.' ^

Writing with various signatures in ' The Public
Advertiser ' through more than five years down to May
1772, Junius wrote his best letters, as Junius, between
January 21, 1769, and January 21, 1772, and of these
there were thirty-eight. The first was penned when
the Duke of Grafton, replacing Lord Chatham, and him-
self soon to be replaced by Lord North, had for a year
been nominal head of the ministrj' with which, often
shifting the pawns and other pieces on his chess-board,
George III. kept the political game in his own hands
till 1782 or later. Junius was a Whig of Walpole's
school at its best, with only such changes in its policy
as he deemed prudent or convenient to the partisanship
he affected, and with no more sympathy for the demo-
■crats like Wilkes, whose energies he sought to make use-
ful to the state, as he understood it, than for the Tories
and the ' king's friends,' on whom he heaped unstinted
scorn. In his first letter he reviewed the whole situa-
tion. ' Behold,' he said, ' a nation overwhelmed with
debt ; her revenues wasted ; her trade declining ; the
affections of her colonies alienated ; the duty of the
magistrate transferred to the soldiery ; a gallant army,
which never fought unwillingly but against their fellow-
subjects, mouldering away for want of the direction of
a man of common abilities and spirit ; and, in the last
instance, the administration of justice become odious
and suspected to the whole body of the people. This
deplorable scene admits of but one addition — that we

' Letters of Junius, No. 35.

186 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. ti,

are governed by counsels from whicli a reasonable
man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief but
death.' ^

Sir William Draper ventured, in ' The Public Adver-
tiser ' of January 26, to take up the cudgels for Grafton
and his colleagues against ' this Junius, this high-priest of
envy, malice, and all uncharitableness,' and Jimius made
Draper a special object of attack in liis next and several
subsequent letters, until the poor, baffled knight was
forced to seek in America a hiding-place from his assail-
ant's blows. In the meanwhile Junius attacked others
as well, and with steadily increasing boldness and bitter-
ness ; saying much besides what has been quoted in
defence, not of Wilkes, but of the principles that were
outraged in the treatment to which Wilkes was subjected.
Condemning Grafton on public grounds, he held up to
ridicule his private character and conduct. ' There is
something in both,' he said, ' which distinguishes you
not only from all other ministers, but all other men. It
is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should
never do right by mistake. It is not that your indolence
and your activity have been equally misapplied, but that
the first uniform principle, or, if I may so call it, the
genius of your life, should have carried you through every
possible change and contradiction of conduct without the
momentary imputation or colour of a virtue, and that
the wildest spirit of contradiction should never once
have betrayed you into a wise or honourable action.'
The Duke of Grafton was Charles II. 's great-grandson,
and Junius brought this ugly fact into the controversy.
' The character of the reputed ancestors of some men has
made it possible for their descendants to be vicious in
the extreme without being degenerate. Those of your
grace, for instance, left no distressing examples of virtue,,

' Letters of Junius, No. 1.

1769-1770. JUNIUS ON THE DUKE OF GRAFTON 187

even to their legitimate posterity, and you may look
back with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree in which
heraldry has not left a single good quality upon record
to insult or upbraid you. You have better proofs of your
descent, my lord, than the register of a marriage, or any
troublesome inheritance of reputation. There are some
hereditary strokes of character by which a family may be
as clearly distinguished as by the blackest features of
the human race. Charles I. lived and died a hypocrite.
Charles II. was a hypocrite of another sort, and should
have died upon the same scaiFold. At the distance of a
century we see their different characters happily revived
and blended in your grace. Sullen and severe without
religion, profligate without gaiety, you live like Charles
II., without being an amiable companion, and for aught
I know may die as his father did, without the reputa-
tion of a martyr.' ^

The Duke of Grafton died comfortably forty-two
years later, but Junius, along with Lord Chatham and
others, worried him out of the premiership in January
1770, though he soon returned to take subordinate
oflice, and to be further attacked over and over again
by Junius, whose counsel in February he had not cared
to follow. ' Retire, my lord,' Junius wrote then, ' and
hide your blushes from the world, for with such a load
of shame even black may change its colour. A mind
such as yours, in the solitary hours of domestic enjoy-
ment, may still find topics of consolation. You may
find it in the memory of violated friendship, in the
afflictions of an accomplished prince whom you have
disgraced and deserted, and in the agitations of a great
country driven by your counsels to the brink of destruc-
tion.' ' Your grace,' he added, ' was the firm minister of
yesterday. Lord North is the firm minister of to-day.
^ Letters ofjimius, No. 12.

188 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. vr.

To-morrow, perhaps his majesty, in his wisdom, may
give us a rival for you both.' ^

The most daring, though not the most violent, of all
the letters of Junius was the one he addressed to the
king on December 19, 1769, and of which he said a week
before, ' I am now meditating a capital and, I hope, a
final piece.' ^

' It is the misfortune of your life,' this long letter
began, ' and originally the cause of every reproach and
distress which has attended your government, that you
should never have been acquainted with the language
of truth until you heard it in the complaints of your
people. It is not, however, too late to correct the error
of your education.' Junius thereupon proceeded to
instruct his majesty on several points, sarcastically pro-
posing to ' separate the amiable, good-natured prince
from the folly and treachery of his servants, and the pri-
vate virtues of the man from the vices of his government.'
This was a comprehensive indictment of the policy of past
and present ministers whom George III. was blamed
for appointing, with particular reference to the Wilkes
case ; and plain warning was joined with plain reproof.
' If the English people should no longer confine their
resentment to a submissive representation of their
wrongs,' Junius urged, ' if, following the glorious ex-
ample of their ancestors, they should no longer appeal
to the creature of the constitution, but to that hio-h
Being who gave them the rights of humanity, whose
gifts it were sacrilege to surrender, let me ask you, su-,
upon what part of your subjects would you rely for
assistance ? The people of Ireland have been uniformly
plundered and oppressed. In return they give you
every day fresh marks of their resentment. . . . The

' Letters of Juniiis, No. 36.

" Private Letters of Junius, No. 15.

1769-1772. JUNIUS ON GEORGE III. 189

distance of the colonies would make it impossible for
them to take an active concern in your affairs, if they
were as well affected to your government as they once
pretended to be to your person. ... It is not from the
alienated affections of Ireland or America that you can
reasonably look for assistance ; still less from the people
of En^and, who are actually contending for their rights
and, in this great question, are parties against you.'
' The people of England,' he said, in conclusion, ' are
loyal to the House of Hanover, not from a vain pre-
ference of one family to another, but from a conviction
that the establishment of that family was necessary to
the support of their civil and religious liberties. This,
sir, is a principle of allegiance equally solid and rational,
fit for Englishmen to adopt, and well worthy of your
majesty's encouragement. We cannot long be deluded
by nominal distinctions. The name of Stuart, of it-
self, is only contemptible ; armed with the sovereign
authority, their principles are formidable. The prince
who imitates their conduct should be warned by their
example, and, while he plumes himself upon the secu-
rity of his title to the crown, should remember that, as
it was acquked by one revolution, it may be lost by
another.'-^

Junius continued his trenchant letters to ' The Public
Advertiser ' for more than two years longer, ending with
two indignant articles, which appeared in the same num-
ber, on Lord Mansfield, whom he declared to be ' the very
worst and most dangerous man in the kingdom ' ; ^ and he
wrote on, as Veteran, Anti-Belial, Scotus, Arthur Tell-
Truth, and Nemesis, for four months further. But he
laid aside his pen in May 1772, and, when asked in the fol-
lowing January for fresh contributions, he replied, ' In the

' Letters of Junius, No. 35.
" Ihid., Nos. 68 and 69.

190 WILKES AND JUNIUS ch. vi.

present state of things, if I were to write again, I must
be as silly as any of tlie horned cattle that run mad
through the city, or any of your wise aldermen. I
meant the cause and the public. Both are given up. I
feel for the honour of this country when I see there are
not two men in it who will unite and stand together
upon any one question. But it is all alike — vile and
contemptible.' ^

Whether Junius was Sir Philip Francis or some
one else, it may be assumed that there were other than
public reasons for the discontinuance of his news-
paper warfare after it had been waged for five years,
but while it lasted it raised journalism to a far more
important position than it had ever held before, and
its influence did not end with its close. Great strides
were made between 1755, when 'The Monitor' was
started, and — ' The North Briton' intervening — 1772,
when Junius vanished.

' Private Letters of Junius, No. 63.

L91

CHAPTER VII.

THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS.
1760—1788.

George III. had no liking for newspapers ; but they
made great progress during the sixty years of his
reign, and partly in consequence of his and his advisers'
efforts to restrain them. The fight for liberty, though
it was not finished in his day or in the lifetime of either
of his sons, was carried on from year to year ; and if
no other writer as vigorous as Junius appeared in his
generation or in the one that followed it, the same
causes that brought Junius into the field led to the
continuance and extension of the journalistic work in
one line of which he excelled. There was a steady in-
crease both of newspaper enterprise and of the power
of newspapers in influencing and informing public
opinion ; and not ' a little of the credit is due to the
intelligence and zeal of Henry Samj)son Woodfall and
WUliam Woodfall, two worthy members of a family of
printers which was famous all through the eighteenth
century.

Henry Woodfall, the first of this family of whom we
have any record, was a printer who in Queen Anne's
time, and down to the year 1747 or later, 'carried on
a considerable business with reputation' just outside
Temple Bar, Pope being one of the many men of
letters for whom he worked. He had two sons, Henry

192 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. tii.

and George, who started in trade for themselves during
their father's hfetime ; the elder as a printer in Pater-
noster Row, the younger as a bookseller at Charing^
Cross. ^ The second Henry "Woodfall, who was master
of the Stationers' Company in 1766, and died 'wealthy
and respected ' in 1769, either obtained through his
father or acquired for himself a tenth share of ' The
Public Advertiser,' which, as has already been noted, was
descended from ' The Daily Post,' started with Defoe's
help in 1719, and siiccessively called 'The London
Daily Post and General Advertiser ' and ' The General
Advertiser' before 1752, when it began to flourish
under its more famous name. Though only a partner
in the concern, this Henry Woodfall had the manage-
ment of the paper till 1758, when he entrusted both the
printing and the editing of it to his eldest son, Henry
Sampson Woodfall, who was then but nineteen years of
age. By the younger Woodfall ' The Public Advertiser '
was skilfully conducted till 1793, when he retired from
business.^ Through more than half of George III.'s
reign he was thus one of the most conspicuous men in
the newspaper world, but his brother William , six years
younger, was in some respects quite as notable a man.
William Woodfall had been apprenticed to book-
selling under Richard Baldwin, in Paternoster Row,
but, being fond of theatrical society, he had tried
his fortunes as an actor for a year or so before 1769,
when, at the age of four-and-twenty, and on his father's
death, he settled down in the family calling. Besides
having some connection with ' The Weekly Packet,' he
became printer and editor of a new Whig paper, ' The
Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser,' which was

' Nichola, Literary Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 300 ; Notes and Queries,
vol. xi. pp. 377, 418 ; vol. xii. pp. 197, 217.
^ Nichols, vol. i. p. 301.

1760-1788. 'THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER' 193

then commenced in friendly rivalry to his brother's
' Public Advertiser,' and he managed it successfully
during twenty years .

Of the daily papers published in London when
George III. began to reign, the oldest, unless we
regard ' The Public Advertiser ' as identical with ' The
Daily Post,' were ' The Daily Advertiser,' started in
1724, and ' The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,'
started in 1728 ; but both of these had come to be little
more than advertising sheets, containing a few columns
of news, but of no political importance. They were far
surpassed by ' The Public Advertiser,' which offered,
along with a good summary of foreign and domestic
intelligence, original articles, and sometimes smart
pieces of verse. Its chief attraction to many readers,
however, was the ample supply of letters on all sorts of
subjects, and from writers of all shades of opinion, which
were printed in it. Of these the letters of Junius,
whether bearing that famous signature or otherwise
designated, were the most important between 1767 and
1772, but nearly every day's issue contained at least one
that was worth reading. There was hardly a public man
who did not use the columns of ' The Public Ad-
vertiser ' in order to call attention to some grievance he
wanted redressed or to some interest he desired to ad-
vance. The most frequent correspondents were Whigs
or other opponents of the government ; but minis-
terialists, and sometimes even ministers of high rank,
wrote to contradict the statements and arguments put
forward by their adversaries, and Woodfall prided him-
self on the strict impartiality witb which he opened his
columns to all who gave or sold him matter worth
printing and likely to interest or instruct the public.
' Notwithstanding the .great and deserved popularity of
Junius,' said one who knew this judicious and enter-

VOL, I. 0

194 TPIE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. vir.

prising old editor, ' yet as many very able papers on the
ministerial side of the question were admitted as on
that of the opposition, and without any other preference
than priority of receipt, or than the temporary nature
of the subject, would demand. With regard to the line
of conduct he had adopted respecting his paper in a pecu-
niary point of view, it was always most scrupulously
honourable and correct, and though frequently offered
money to suppress certain articles of intelligence not
pleasant to the particular individual, yet never could he
be prevailed upon to forego what he deemed it his duty
to the pubhc for any consideration of such kind, how-
ever much to his personal advantage.' ^

Woodfall's publication of letters from amateur
journalists and others pleased the readers of ' The
Public Advertiser ' as well as the writers, and it was
continued in profusion for a long time after the me-
morable example set by Junius. It was still the fashion
when Crabbe laughed good-humouredly at it in 1785 : —

Now puffs exhausted, advertisements passed,
Their correspondents stand exposed at last.
These are a numerous tribe, to fame unknown.
Who for the public good forego their own ;
Who, volunteers in paper war, engage
With double portion of their party's rage ;
Such are the Bruti, Decii, who appear.
Wooing the printer for admission here.
Whose generous souls can condescend to pray
For leave to throw their precious time away.

And we can easily understand how, as Crabbe sug-
gested, there were more applicants for such permission
than could be found room for, even though these un-
paid-for contributions lessened the expenses of the paper
and provoked the wrath of the professional journalists

' Nichols, vol. i. p. 301.

1760-1788. 'THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER' 195

who suffered in pocket as well as in fame by the
rivalry.

O, cruel Woodfall ! when a patriot draws
His grey-goose quill in his dear country's cause,
To vex and maul a ministerial race,
Can thy stem soul refuse the champion place ?
Alas ! thou know'st not with what anxious heart
He longs his best-loved labours to impart ;
How he has sent them to thy brethren round.
And stUl the same unkind reception found.
At length, indignant, will he damn the state,
Turn to his trade, and leave us to our fate. '

Even Woodfall had need to keep down his expenses
and court popularity by priating as many letters of
the Junius sort as he could procure. In January 1765,
before Junius began to write for it, the average circula-
tion of ' The Daily Advertiser ' was less than 2,000, the
whole month's sale being only 47,575 copies. In
December 1768, while Junius was writing, though not
under that title, the circulation was about 3,000, or
75,450 in the course of the month. There was no con-
siderable change during 1769 till December 19, when
the letter to the king appeared, and when, though 1,750
additional copies were printed, there was not one to be
bought at any price a few hours after the publication.
The later Junius letters do not appear to have increased
the circulation much further, as in December 1771,
when aU but the last two had appeared, the total sale
was only 83,950, or a daily average of about 3,200.^

Some other curious statistics have been preserved,
which throw light on the working expenses of ' The
Public Advertiser' at this time. During 1773, it
would seem, the entire cost of collecting and translating
foreign news, including the purchase of foreign news-

' Crabbe, The Newspaper.

2 The Athenseum, July 1848 and July 1849 ; Nos. 1,082, 1,083, and
1,132.

0 2

196 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. tii.

papers, was 114/. ; while the charge for 'home news
and incidents ' was 282/. 45. ll^d., besides 121. for
'Lloyd's Coffee-house for post news,' 31/. lO*. for
' Mr. Green for post entries,' and 8/. 5,§. for a ' Ports-
mouth letter,' as well as 50/. for ' plantation, Irish,
Scotch, and country papers,' 26/. 85. 9^d for London
' morning and evening papers,' and 15/. 15s. for ' a per-
son to go daily to fetch in advertisements, get evening
papers, &c.' Other entries are for ' setting up extra
advertisements,' 31/. 10s. ; ' clerk, and to collect debts,'
30/.; and 'bad debts,' 18/. 3s. 6d. These modest
items in a complete year's working of a daily paper
were augmented by a charge of 210/. 19s. 6d. for Drury
Lane, Covent Garden, and other playhouse ' advertise-
ments,' the theatres at that time being paid for the
privilege of printing their playbills in advance, instead
of as now paying heavily for the insertion of their
announcements. The record evidently does not include
the paj'ments made to the editor or to contributors
other than the mere compilers of news. Nor are we
told what were the proceeds of sales ; but the income
from advertisements after payment of the tax then
levied averaged 50/. a week, and in 1774 the total
profits, after payment of all expenses, were 1,740/.
That sum was divided among the several proprietors,
among whom John Rivington and James Dodsley, be-
sides Henry Sampson Woodfall, each had a tenth share,
and Thomas Longman, Thomas Cadell, and William
Strahan had a twentieth apiece.^

The most important rival of ' The Public Adver-
tiser' at the commencement of George III.'s reio-n
was ' The Public Ledger, a Daily Register of Commerce
and Intelligence,' started on January 12, 1760, by New-
berry, the bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, and

' Knight Hunt, Fourth Estate, vol. ii. pp. 191, 192.

17(50. GEORGE IH.'S NEWSPAPEBS 197

edited by Griffitli Jones. ' Unwilliag to raise expec-
tations whicli we may perhaps find ourselves unable
to satisfy,' its projectors announced in their first number ^
' we have made no mention of criticism or literature,
which yet we do not professedly exclude, nor shall we
reject any political essays which ai'e apparently cal-
culated for the public good.' Before it came to be a
bald record of commercial items, however, ' The Public
Ledger ' was conducted with much spirit, and provided
attractive reading for Tories and othei's. Goldsmith
wrote for it as a ' Citizen of the World,' and received a
guinea apiece for two articles each week.-^

Newberry's other paper, ' The Universal Chronicle,'
now incorporated with ' The Westminster Gazette,' con-
tinued, after Johnson had ceased to contribute to it as
'the Idler,' to be for some time the favourite Tory
weekly ; and as a Saturday miscellany it Differed formid-
able rivalry to the many others of the same class that
were now in the field, most of them with a Whig bias,
and including the veteran ' Read's Weekly Journal,'
which had existed nearly half a century. Among the
numerous tri- weekly pa])ers, ' The St. James's Chro-
nicle ' started m 1760 as an independent Whig organ
on the same lines as ' The Public Advertiser,' the
more democratic ' London Evening Post ' and the Tory
' London Chronicle ' took precedence in their several
ways ; others being ' The General Evening Post ' and
' Lloyd's Evening Post.' But the number of miscel-
laneous papers, some of them ephemeral and others
long-lived, had by this time become so great, that it
would be tedious to attempt such a chronicle of their
appearances and disappearances as has been oflPered for
the earlier and less crowded stages of newspaper history.
Since the commencement of George III.'s reign every

' Forster, Life of Goldsmith.

198 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHEES ch. vn.

year has had its own parcel of fresh journals started in
London and the provincial towns, and only those of
most importance need be mentioned.

One new paper, too interesting to be overlooked,
was ' The Middlesex Journal, or Chronicle of Libertj'^,'
of which the first number appeared on April 4, 1769,
and which was issued every Tuesday, Thursday, and
Saturday, during a few years. It was commenced nine
days before the third Middlesex election of that year,
when, Wilkes having been twice returned without a
contest to represent the county in parliament, and
twice deprived of his seat by the vote of the House
of Commons, the constituents once again insisted upon
returning the man of their choice. ' The Middlesex
Journal,' started by Lord Mayor Beckford and the citi-
zens and others who supported Wilkes, and at first
published by Isaac Fell, was an angry and outspoken
opponent of the tyrannical policy adopted by the
government. ' Roused by an honest indignation against
those venal abettors of despotism, and animated with
the warmest attachment to the genuine cause of liberty,
enemies to every species of licentiousness, and at the
same time professing the most steady adherence to our
sovereign,' it was said in the opening article, ' we under-
take to vindicate the cause of depressed liberty by exhi-
biting in full view to the people every measure that has
already been taken, and every attempt that may fai-ther
be made upon that great charter of our laws, that
palladium of English liberty, which, purchased by the
best blood, has been maintained by the warmest zeal of
the wisest and best men this nation has ever produced.'
Wilkes's address to the electors of Middlesex, dated
from King's Bench prison on March 23, was printed in
this number, and other signed manifestoes by him,
along with forcible articles and pungent letters by

1769. 'THE MIDDLESEX JOUKNAL ' 199

various writers, appeared in succeeding numbers. Of
general news, chiefly taken from the daily papers, about
as much was here given as was furnished in the other
tri- weekly journals ; but ' Wilkes and liberty ' was its
standing theme, enforced with considerable vigour and
variety of illustration, according to the varying inci-
dents in the prolonged struggle between the Wilkites
and George III.'s ministers. ' The Middlesex Journal,'
unKke ' The North Briton,' was a regular newspaper
instead of being a weekly pamphlet, and if its leading
articles lacked the literary skiU of Junius's ■ letters,
and are to us somewhat tedious reading, they served
well enough the purpose for which they were written.
There was a ' poet's corner ' as well as an abundance of
prose argument and denunciation, and the following
verses from the first number, suggested by the recent
' ennobUng of a baronet,' are a fair sample of the quality
of the whole : —

In former times (but heaven be praised

We've no such doings now !)
Some men to peerages were raised,

The world knew why and how.

The modern method is to sink

Contempt in one sliort word ;
For when a name begins to stink

We call the thing a Lord.

One of the contributors to ' The Middlesex Journal '
was Thomas Chatterton, whose unhappy career in
London illustrates in their saddest phase some of the
difficulties of newspaper writers in the London of Greorge
III.'s and Johnson's time, though it would be as unfair
to regard this poor boy's adventures as an average
specimen of journalistic experience in those or any other
days as it would be to judge him by the ordinary canons
of ethics or to hold him responsible for the blunders
into which his erratic and precocious genius led him.

200 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHEES ch. vii,

Chatterton was not yet eighteen wlaen he left Bristol
to seek fame and fortune in London, but several of
his poems had appeared in ' Felix Farley's Bristol
Journal,' and, besides corresponding with Dodsley,
the learned bookseller, who was kinder to him than
Horace Walpole, he had sent up contributions to ' The
Town and Country Magazine ' and to ' The Middlesex
Journal.' These latter, violent political letters in imita-
tion of Junius's style, which, signed Decimus, had been
printed in the numbers for February 24 and March 17,
were very remarkable indeed as the productions of a
youth of seventeen, but not otherwise of much interest.
The success Chatterton had already achieved evidently
led him to expect that in the metropolis he would
quickly make his way, and during the first month he
had ground for hoping. Reaching his kinswoman's
house in Shoreditch on April 26, he next day, as he
informed his mother, had encouraging interviews with
four editors — Dodsley, who had charge of ' The Political
Register,' and the publishers of ' TheTown and Country
Magazine,' of ' The Middlesex Journal,' and of ' The
Freeholder's Magazine,' a monthly publication of the
same political tone. All promised him work, and he soon
obtained promises from seven or eight other editors, in-
cluding Bingley, who, as Wilkes's successor, was still
carrying on ' The North Briton.' ' Occasional essays for
the daily papers,' he wrote in high spirits to his mother
on May 6, 'would more than support me. "What a
glorious prospect ! Mr. Wilkes knew me by my writings
since I first corresponded with the booksellers. He
affirmed that what Mr. Fell had of mme could not be
the writings of a youth.' ^ Fell appears to have been
at this time editing ' The Freeholder's Magazine,' the

' Chatterton, Poetical Works (edited by W. Skeat, with memoir by
E. Bell), vol. i. pp. Ixxxiv. 338.

1769. CHATTERTON AS A JOURNALIST 201

editor of ' The Middlesex ' now being either Hamilton
or Edmunds ; but all these three were friends and fellow-
workers, who exchanged articles with one another at
their convenience, as also with the editors of ' The Town
and Country ' and ' The Political Register.'

In ' The Middlesex Journal ' five articles signed
Decimus and two signed Probus, all by Chatterton, were
printed during May, the longest being one addressed to
Lord Mayor Beckford, with reference to the appeals he
was at this time making to King George III. on behalf of
the citizens of London for the recognition of Wilkes's
right to sit in parliament. It was dated May 18 and pub-
lished on the 24th. ' You have doubtless heard of the lord
mayor's remonstrating and addressing the king,' Chatter-
ton wrote to his sister on the 30th, ' but it will be a piece
of news to inform you that I have been with the lord
mayor on the occasion. Havmg addressed an essay to
his lordship, it was very well received — perhaps better
than it deserved — and I waited on his lordship to have
his approbation and to address a second letter to him
on the subject of the remonstrance and its reception.
His lordship received me as politely as a citizen could,
and warmly invited me to call on him again.' ^

For four of his articles in ' The Middlesex ' Chatterton
received in May 21. — half a guinea apiece for three, and
eight and sixpence for one ; and he earned by other
newspaper work 21. 155. 9(f., including half a guinea for
' The Cousuliad,' a poem of two hundred lines, and
another half-guinea for sixteen songs, to be printed in
' The Town and Country Magazine.'''* Though this was
poor pay, even for those days, the young man might
have been satisfied with it had he contmued to find a
market for his writings. But the demand soon fell ofi^,
and some of the editors who accepted contributions from

' Chatterton, vol. i. p. 348. ■ Ibid., vol. i. p. Ixxxviii.

202 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS oh. vir.

him could not or would not pay, even wlien they used
them. Chatterton was a hot democrat, anxious to go
further than Wilkes ; and though his views were popu-
lar in London, they were not profitable. ' The devil
of the matter is,' he said in the letter just quoted from,
' there is no money to be got on this side of the ques-
tion. Interest is on the other side. But he is a poor
author who cannot write on both sides.' There we see
how quickly he learned the lesson which hard experience
had taught so many other and older strugglers in the
field of journalism. ' Essay writing, ' he said soon after-
wards, with the cynicism of a veteran, ' has this ad-
vantage, you are sure of constant pay, and when you
have once wrote a piece which makes the author in-
quired after, you may bring the bookseller to your terms.
Essays on the patriotic side fetch no more than what
the copy is sold for.' And he added, ' They publish
" The Gospel Magazine " here. For a whim I write in
it. I believe there are not any in Bristol. They are
hardly worth the carriage — methodistical and unmean-
ing.' ^ To his grief he speedily found that not even for
such hack work as he was prepared to do was there
' constant pay ' or a sufiicient market.

Lord Mayor Beckford died suddenly on May 30,
only a week after his famous interview with the king,
and before Chatterton could publish the ' second letter '
that he had planned and actually sent in to Bingley of
' The North Briton.' On hearing the news, according
to the friend with whom he was lodging, Chatterton
' was perfectly frantic and out of his mind, and said he
was ruined.' ^ He recovered heart enough to write an
elegy on the patron from whom he had expected much,
which was published in a shilling pamphlet, and at least
two prose articles on the same subject ; but on the back.

' Ghatterton, vol. i. pp. 349, 350. ^ Ibid., vol. i. p. Ixxxix.

1769. CHATTEETON AS A JOUENALIST 203

of the returned ' second letter ' he scribbled, -with more
petulance than good taste, ' Accepted by Bingley, set
for, and driven out of "North Briton," 21 June, on
account of the lord mayor's death. Lost by his death
on this essay, 11. lis. 6d., and gained in elegies 21. 2s. ;
essays, 3/. 3s. = 51. 5s. Am glad he is dead by
3^. 13s. 6d.' ^ But though he made this profit, and —
having shifted his lodgings, where he had shared with
his landlady's nephew a bed of which he made little
use, as he sat up writing more than half the night, and
having taken a garret in which he could work without
interruption — made desperate efforts to secure a footing
among the London journahsts, the task was more than
he could achieve. ' The printers of the daily publica-
tions,' he informed his sister at the end of June, ' are all
frightened out of then' patriotism, and will take nothing
unless 'tis moderate or ministerial. I have not had five
patriotic essays this fortnight ; all must be ministerial
or entertaining.' ^ ' Almost all the next " Town and
Country Magazine " is mine,' he wrote in cheerful mood
on July 20 ; but when the number was published he
found that nearly everything he had sent in had been
withheld, and so much as was printed does not seem
to have been paid for. A memorandum found in his
pocket-book after his death showed that 111. was owing
to him for articles accepted by various editors during
his less than four months' residence in London. ^ On
August 25, a day before the four months were over, his
over-taxed brain gave way, and, while yet three months
were wanting to bring him to his eighteenth birthday,
this most precocious, and in some other respects most
remarkable of English journalists, put an end to his life.
Chatterton had come to London at an inauspicious

' Gluitterton, vol. i. p. Ixxxix. ^ Ibid., vol. i. p. 356.

^ Ibid., vol. i. p. xciii.

204 TI-IE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. vir.

time. The letters of Junius, thougli the greater skill
with which they were written rendered them more
offensive and more injurious to the court and the
ministry than anything that Wilkes had printed in ' The
North Briton,' were so much more cautiously worded
that it was by no means easy to find a pretext for
punishing those who issued them, especially as the sub-
stantial victory won by Wilkes, in spite of his as yet
unredressed wrongs, and the great popularity thus
acquired by him, rendered further persecutions dan-
gerous. The irritation and indignation caused and ex-
pressed in aristocratic circles, however, if they did not
frighten Junius, alarmed others, and it was only rea-
sonable that editors, who may have themselves agreed
with Chatterton, should have shrunk from publishing
such violent articles as he enjoyed writing. And, soon
after his arrival, the democratic editors and publishers
were forcibly reminded that the authorities were not pre-
pared to submit meekly to all that was said against them.
The first to suffer was John Almon, a bookseller in
Piccadilly, who published ' The London Museum,' one
of the short-lived monthly magazines that were then
plentiful. Almon, who also published ' The Political
Register,' had already given personal offence to
George III. by printing in it a proposal that the king
had previously made for increasing the army in Ireland ;
and, as a zealous collector of parliamentary news for
' The London Evening Post,' he was obnoxious to many
others. He was accordingly singled out for prosecution
on the charge of reprinting in ' The London Museum,'
as others had done elsewhere, Junius' s famous letter to
the king. He was tried before Lord Mansfield on
June 2, 1770, at the King's Bench, Westminster, found
guilty, and fined ten marks, or 61. 13s. 4//. ^

' Almon, Biographical, Literary, and Political Aiucdotes.

1770. TRIALS FOE LIBELLING THE KING 205

The trial of Henry Sampson Woodfall, who was
deemed more culpable, as the obnoxious letter had ori-
ginally appeared in ' The Public Advertiser,' followed
on June 13, but it was held at the King's Bench,
Guildhall, where the jury was more independent, and it
had a different result. Lord Mansfield, who presided here
also, in the course of his vindictive summing-up, laid it
down as law that, ' as for the intention, the malice, the
sedition, or any harder words which might be given in
informations for libels, public or private, they were
merely formal words, mere words of course, mere in-
ferences of law, withwhichthe jury were not to concern
themselves ' — in plain terms, that they were not to
decide whether the king had been libelled or not, but
whether or not what the authorities regarded as a libel
had been published in ' The PubUc Advertiser.' ^ As
Junius himself mockingly explained, ' Conscious that
the paper in question contained no treasonable or libel-
lous matter, and that the severest parts of it, however
painful to the king or offensive to his servants, were
strictly true. Lord Chief Justice Mansfield would fain
have restricted the jury to the finding of special facts,
which, as to guilty or not guilty, were merely indif-
ferent. This particular motive, combined with the
general purpose to contract the power of juries, will
account for the charge he delivered. He told the jury,
in so many words, that they had nothing to determine,
except the fact of printing and publishing, and that,
whether the defendant had committed a crime or not
was no matter of consideration.' ^ The jury, after more
than nine hours' deliberation, took the judge at his
word, and returned a verdict of ' guilty of printing and
publishing only,' which was in effect an acquittal.

Next month, on July 10, on another of the trials

I State Trials, vol. xx. p. 895. " Letters of Jwrwus, preface.

206 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. vir.

growing out of tlie Junius letter, when the case of John
Miller, the publisher of ' The London Evening Post,' was
before the court, the jury more boldly returned a dis-
tinct verdict of not guilty.'^

These verdicts were important triumphs, and secured
practical immunity for Woodfall and all, except Almon,
who were arraigned for participation in his offence, and
they were followed by one of the most scathing of
Junius's letters, the one of November 14, 1770, in which
he held Lord Mansfield up to public scorn for much
besides his effort to override the functions of a jury in
trials for libel. ^ But Lord Mansfield's ruling, though
loudly protested against in print and hotly debated in
both houses of parliament, Charles James Fox sup-
porting it and Edmund Burke eloquently denouncing it,
was not reversed in his time, and furnished a pernicious
precedent for tyrannising over the press during the next
one-and-twenty years. ^

Meanwhile the press advanced in spite of persecu-
tions. The example set by Henry Sampson Woodfall
in making ' The Public Advertiser ' an enterprising and
trustworthy retailer of general news and repository of
instructive letters by able critics of the government, was
followed more or less successfully by other editors ; and
as efficient service to journalism was rendered in other
ways by his younger brother, William, who conducted
' The Morning Chronicle ' for twenty years, from its
commencement on June 28, 1769.*

^ Siate Trials, vol. xx. p. 870. = Letters of Junius, No. 41.

' See the next chapter.

* Dr. Charles Mackay, in his Thrmigh the Long Day (vol. i. p. 66),
gives the names of the twenty original proprietors of The Morning
■Chronicle, appended to ' a deed signed on October 23, IVCO '—ap-
parently a misprint for 1769. Among these proprietors there were,
besides William Woodfall, six booksellers— John Murray, WiUiam Griffin,
T. Evans, J. Spilsbury, James Eobson, and Peter Elmsley. Other pro-
prietors were James Christie, the auctioneer, .James Bowles, the stationer,
Oeorge Kearsley, and William Kenrick, whose name stands first in the list.

1770. WILLIAM WOODFALL'S MEMORY 207

William Woodfall deserves none the less to be
honoured because, in the enthusiastic exercise of his
peculiar talent, he cared more for the improvement of
the craft to which he devoted himself than for his own
pecuniary advantage. ' His memory,' we are told by
one of his friends, ' was uncommonly retentive, and,
were it not for this quality, he would probably have
risen to affluence in a world upon which he entered with
a competence, and left in very humble circumstances.
Aided and incited, however, by this advantage, he ex-
plored a path hitherto unknown, and commenced a
career of great but unprofitable labour — the fatiguing
and difficult task of giving a report of the debates in
the two houses of parliament on the night of the pro-
ceedings. In this line he attained the highest degree of
celebrity, as well for the fidelity of his report as the
quality and rapidity of his execution.' Before his time,
no editors took the trouble, except on occasions of
special importance, to publish on the morning of one
day any report, or more than a bare account in a few
lines, of the previous day's parliamentary debates, and
often such reports as appeared were two or three days
in arrear, and only inserted when room was found for
them by lack of other matter. Woodfall made it his busi-
ness, acting as his own reporter, to give all such intelli-
gence not only with unusual promptness, but also with
almost unprecedented fulness ; and in doing this he made
good use of rare natural gifts. ' Without taking a note
to assist his memory,' it is added, ' without the use of
an amanuensis to ease his labour, he has been known
to write sixteen columns after having sat in a crowded
gallery for as many hours, without an interval of rest.
He took pride in his exertion, which brought him more
praise than profit. It wore down his constitution, which
was naturally good, and when other papers, by the

208 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. tit.

division of labour produced the same length of details
with an earlier publication, he yielded the contest.' ^
' His practice in the House of Commons during a debate,'
says another contemporary, ' was to close his eyes, and
to lean both hands on his stick. He was so well ac-
quainted with the tone and manner of the several
speakers that he only deviated from his customary
position when a new member addressed the house, and,
having heard his name, he had no subsequent occasion
for further inquiry.'^

Permission thus to make himself at home in the
gallery of the House of Commons, and to use his
wonderful memory for the public instruction, was not
obtained by William Woodfall without a hard struggle,
in. which others took part with him and preceded him.
The devices by which Dr. Johnson and his rivals in
the compilation of parliamentary debates evaded the
rules of both houses in the time of George II. have
already been noted. The early parliaments of Greorge
III. were more tenacious of their privilege as re-
gards the exclusion of strangers than most of their
forerunners, and violent measures were sometimes re-
sorted to for keeping even peers out of the House of
Commons and commoners out of the House of Lords,
whenever matters were being discussed about which it
was thought desirable that none but actual members
should be informed. The meagre accounts of proceed-
ings in either house which the weekly and daily news-
papers furnished when they began to follow the example
of the monthly magazines were generally short and not
too accurate records of gossip obtained from members,
and even these often brought those who published them
into trouble. John Almon, who was the most enter-

' Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 303.

' Jolin Taylor, Becords of my life, vol. ii. p. 245.

1771. PARLIAMENT AND THE REPORTERS 209

prising precursor of William Woodfall, and whose re-
ports appeared in ' The London Evening Post,' was the
cause of several prosecutions, directed either against
himself or against the printer of the paper. According
to Almon, one member of the House of Peers who
was particularly zealous in upholding its rights, made
it his special business ' to examine the newspapers every-
day with the ardour that a hawk prowls for prey ;
whenever he found any lord's name printed ia any
paper, he immediately made a motion against the
printer for a breach of privilege.' On one occasion three
printers were fined lOOl. apiece, and another 2001., for
an offence of this sort.^ The House of Commons was
less tyrannical or less able to control the journals which
persisted in saying something about its proceedings
nearly every day, but its members resented the insult-
ing terms in which the reports were often given, and
more frequently than ever when such scandals as the
expulsion of Wilkes were being dealt with. Greorge
Onslow, for example, had to complain that he had been
spoken of as ' little cocking George,' ' the little scoun-
drel,' and ' that little paltry, insignificant insect,' and
that he and his cousin had been described as ' the con-
stellations of the two bears, one being called the great
and the other the little scoundrel.' ^

At length on February 8, 1771, this Onslow not
only complained but induced the house to summon
R. Thompson, the printer of ' The Gazetteer,' and John
Wheble, the printer of ' The Middlesex Journal,' to
appear before it and answer to the charge of ' misrepre-
senting the speeches and reflecting on several members.'
The offenders paid no heed to this order, five times

' Andrews, British Jownalism, vol. i. p. 197.

' Gmendish Debates, cited by Sir Brskine May, Constitutional History,
chapter vii.

VOL. I. P

210 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. tii.

repeated, and when an officer of the house was commis-
sioned to take them into custody, he was mockingly-
refused admission to the rooms they occupied. A royal
proclamation was then issued for their apprehension,
and a reward of 50/. oifered to anyone who gave them
up. On March 12, moreover, similar complaints were
made in the house against William Woodfall, of ' The
Morning Chronicle,' T. Evans, of ' The London Packet,'
Henry Baldwin, of ' The St. James's Chronicle,' T.
Wright, of ' The Whitehall Evening Post,' John Miller,
of ' The London Evening Post,' and J. Bladon, of ' The
General Evening Post,' and their arrest, also, was
ordered. Woodfall was reported to be already under-
going punishment by order of the House of Lords.
Baldwin, Bladon, and Wright surrendered, apologised,
and were discharged, and Miller, after hiding himself,
surrendered and was imprisoned for a short time ; but
Evans wrote to the Speaker denjring the right of the
house to interfere with him, and Miller quietly ignored
the order, as Wheble and Thompson had done.^ Of
Evans we lose sight, but a tough battle was fought
over the three others.

It is fair to note that, though George III. signed
the proclamation on which this struggle ensued, he did
so under protest, and with doubt as to its expediency.
' It is highly necessary,' he wrote to Lord North, ' that
this strange and lawless method of publishing debates
in the papers should be put a stop to ; but is not the
House of Lords, as a court of record, the best court to
bring such miscreants before ? as it can fine as weU as
imprison, and as the lords have broader shoulders to

^ Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xxxiii. pp. 149, 208, 234, 249-
259. Parliamentary sanction of these proceedings was not obtained with-
out much of what would now be called obstruction. There were twenty-
three divisions, and one sitting lasted till past four in the morning.
' Posterity will bless the pertinaciousness of that day,' said Burke.

1771. EBPORTEES AND THEIR CHAMPIONS 211

support any odium that this salutary measure may
occasion in the minds of the vulgar.' ^

The recalcitrant printers were supported by "WUkes
^nd the whole body of London democrats, and on
March 14, Wheble, who was still at large, forwarded to
the Speaker counsel's opinion as to the illegality of the
proclamation against him, and declared that it was his
intention ' to yield no obedience but to the laws of
the land.' Next day, however, he was apprehended by
E. T. Carpenter, a journeyman printer, who was evi-
dently in collusion with the champions of liberty, and
brought up at the Guildhall, where Wilkes, as alderman
■of Farringdon Without, was at the moment sitting as
magistrate. Wilkes at once discharged Wheble, binding
him over to prosecute Carpenter for assault and false
imprisonment, and wrote a letter of formal complaint
to Lord Halifax, the secretary of state, concerning
Wheble's arrest by a person who was ' neither a con-
stable nor a peace officer of the city,' and this not for
any legal offence, but under a proclamation which was
' in direct violation of the rights of an Englishman and
of the chartered privileges of a citizen of this metro-
polis.' ^

On this same 15th of March, Thompson, who had
been arrested by another friendly printer, was taken
before Alderman Oliver at the Mansion House, and by
him similarly discharged as ' not being accused of having
committed any crime.' ^

On the 16th more excitiag business occurred.
Wheble and Thompson had been arrested under cover
of a royal proclamation. Miller was now taken into
custody under a warrant from the Speaker, acted on
by Whittam, a House of Commons messenger, who had

' Oorrespondence mth Lord North, vol. i. p. 57.
' Parliamientary History, vol. xvii. p. 95. ' Ibid.

p 2

212 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. vn.

forced his way into Miller's shop in order to find him.
Miller protested, sent for a constable, and gave his
captor into custody on a charge of assault and false
imprisonment. Both were then taken to the Mansion
House, where Brass Crosby, the lord mayor, was
sitting, with Wilkes and Oliver to support him, and
these magistrates, dismissing the charge against Miller,
committed Whittam for trial at the next quarter sessions,
Wilkes again writing to Lord Halifax to condemn the
illegal proceedings against the printers.^

All this was more than the government and its
majority in the House of Commons could meekly submit
to. On the 18 th the lord mayor and Oliver, who were
both members of the house, were ordered to appear
on separate days in their places and answer for their
conduct, and Wilkes, who had been deprived of his
membership, was ordered to appear at the bar. ' I own,*^
wrote the king, ' I could have wished that Wilkes had
not been ordered before the house, for he must be in
gaol the next term if not given new life by some
punishment inflicted on him, which will bring him new
supplies ; and I do not doubt that he wUl hold such
language that will oblige some notice to be taken of
him.' ^ Wilkes instead of appearing, wrote to say that,
as he had not been addressed as a member of parliament,
the summons was informal and he should not obey it.
It was twice repeated, but as on the third occasion his
attendance was, apparently by design, appointed for a
day on which the house was not sitting, the proceedings
against him lapsed.^ In the meanwhile his colleagues
had brought matters to a crisis.

' Parliamentary History, vol. xvii. p. 98.

" Correspondence xuiih Lord North, vol. i. p. 66. Wilkes, it should b©
noted, was now, as nearly always, heavily in debt, and waiting for more
of the public subscriptions on which he had learnt to rely.

' Pa/rliamentary History, vol. xvii. p. 113.

1771. BEPORTEKS AJSTD THEIR CHAMPIONS 213

On March 19 Lord Mayor Crosby, thougli troubled
with, a violent attack of gout, drove up to Westminster,
attended by an enthusiastic crowd . of citizens, who
could with difficulty be prevented from followiug him
into the house itself. In his defence he quoted the
city charters, and argued that he was bound by his office
to protect aU citizens from assault by outsiders of what-
ever sort, and after some altercation his request for
leave to be further heard through counsel, ' so as they
do not affect or controvert the privileges of the house,'
was acceded to ; and a like permission was afterwards
given to Alderman Oliver. Without waiting for the
result, however, the house ordered the lord mayor's
clerk to produce the city minute book, and compelled
him, etandiug at the table, to erase from it the record of
the proceedings against Whittam ; Burke and a great
many other members, when their protests were unavail-
ing, formally walking out of the house in order to
emphasise their resentment of what Lord Chatham de-
scribed as ' the act of a mob, not of a parliament.' ^

The next stage in the contest was reached on March
25, when Crosby and Oliver, accompanied by a larger
and angrier crowd than before, which made so much
noise outside that members could hardly hear one
another speak, announced that, after due consideration,
they did not intend to employ counsel, but were pre-
pared to uphold their action. The house thereupon
resolved that its privileges had been grossly violated.
Crosby was allowed to go home for that evening, his
friends unharnessing the horses and bearing him off in
triumph to the Mansion House ; but Oliver, after de-
clariag that he gloried ia what he had done, and that,
' as he expected little from their j ustice, he defied their

' Parliameniary History, vol. xvii. pp. 117-121 ; Walpole, Memoirs,
vol. iv. p. 294.

214 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS oh. vn»

power,' was ordered to the Tower, after a fierce debate
whicli continued till half-past tliree iii the morning. At
the next meeting of the house the lord mayor again
attended, the crowd that came with him blocking tip
Palace Yard and rendering it very difficult for the minis-
terialist members, who were hustled and pelted with
stones and mud, to reach the doors, and Lord North, who
was injured in the fray, having his carriage broken to
pieces. When the members had contrived to assemble, it
was proposed that in consideration of the lord mayor's
health he should be merely placed under the custody of
the sergeant-at-arms, but this he refused. ' I ask no-
favour of this house,' he exclaimed ; ' I crave no mercy
from the treasury bench. I am ready to go to my noble
friend at the Tower if the house shall order me. My
conscience is clear, and tells me that I have kept my
oath and done my duty to the city of which I have the
honour to be chief magistrate, and to my country. I
have no apology to make for having acted uprightly,
and I fear not any resentment in consequence of such
conduct.' To the Tower accordingly he was sent.^

Lord Chatham expressed the view of moderate
statesmen in blaming both sides in this struggle.
' Great,' he said, ' is the absurdity of the city in putting
the quarrel on the exercise of the most tenable privilege
the house is possessed of — a right to summon before
them printers printing their debates during the session.
Incomparable is the wrong- headedness and folly of the
court, ignorant how to be twenty-four hours on good
ground ; for they have most ingeniously contrived to-
be guilty of the rankest tyranny in every step taken
to assert the right.' ^ Junius, as was to have been ex-

' Parliamentary History, vol. xvii. pp. 125, 155-157 ; Letters of Junius,
note to No. 44.

^ Grenville Papers, vol. iv. p. 533.

1771. REPOETEES AND THEIE CHAMPIONS 215

pected, sided with the city agaiast the court and its
minions in both houses of parliament. ' The triplet
union of crown, lords, and commons against England,'
he wrote, signing himself ' an Englishman, and enemy
to the cabinet therefore,' on March 25, the day before
Crosby and Oliver were locked up, ' displays itself with
a violence and candour which statesmen in other con-
spiracies seldom have adopted. It is no more a question
of royal antipathy or feminine unrelenting resentment,
it is not a single inconsequent act of arbitrary power,
it is not the offensive individual, but the free constitu-
tion of this country whose destruction engages the
influence of the crown and the authority of parliament.
The House of Commons assume a power of imprison-
ment during pleasure for actions which the laws have
not made criminal. They create a crime as well as a
punishment. They call upon the king to support their
illegality by a proclamation stUl more illegal, and the
liberty of the press is the object of this criminal alliance.
They expunge a recognisance, they stagnate the cause
of justice, and thereby assume an absolute power. over
the law and property of Great Britain. The House of
Lords have not been backward in their contribution to
the scheme of slavery ; for they have imprisoned and
they have fined. The crime, like the punishment, was
in their own bosom. They were ex post facto legis-
lators. They were parties ; they were judges ; and, in-
stead of a court of final judicature, acted as a court of
criminal jurisdiction in the first instance. The three
estates, instead of being a control upon each other, are
let loose upon the constitution. The absolute power of
the crown, by the assistance of the handmaid corrup-
tion, puts on the disguise of privilege. In the arrange-
ment of hostility, the associated senate takes the lead,
and illegal proclamation brings up the rear of oppres-

216 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. tii.

sion. The cabal advances upon us as an army once did
upon a town — it displayed before it a multitude of
nuns, and overawed the resistance of the besieged by
the venerable appearance. So the cabinet puts forth the
countenance of parliament, and marches against the
constitution under the shelter of the hallowed fraUty.' ^

Hallowed fraUty, as embodied in a courtly House
of Commons, was not much respected in this instance.
Junius wrote other letters in ' The Public Advertiser,'
and there was a constant storm of complaint both inside
and outside the city, while Lord Mayor Crosby and
Alderman Oliver held high festival in the Tower, visited
by WUkes and all the other leading democrats and by
Burke and all the other iatelligent politicians, until
May 8, when, parliament being prorogued and there
being no such pretext as even Lord North's govern-
ment could find for detaining them any longer, the
prisoners were set free.

Neither that nor any other government dared to
renew the war. From this time forth, though the right
was not recognised, no systematic attempt was made to
prevent the publication of parliamentary reports in the
newspapers. WUkes and his friends had won a great
victory, and a most important advance had been made
towards securing the liberty of the press and extending
its usefulness.

Hindrances were offered from time to time. While
the American war was being discussed in 1775 and
1776, the galleries were frequently closed in obedience
to the request of some member who moved that the
standing order excluding strangers be read, to the
annoyance of sensible legislators as well as of the public.
On one occasion, when the reading of the standing
order had been omitted, Charles James Fox, who had

' Miscellaneous Letters of Junius, No 92.

1771. THE EEPORTERS' VICTOBY 217

supported the ministry ia its arbitrary conduct five years
before, thought fit to make an ampler speech than he
had intended, alleging that, ' as strangers Vere admitted
here for one day, it was necessary for him to repeat
what he had often urged,' and in January 1778, when
Wnkes's Westminster opponent. Colonel Luttrell, moved
the exclusion of strangers on account of what he re-
garded as ' newspaper misrepresentation ' of his conduct,
Fox frankly declared that ' he was convinced the true
and only method of preventuig misrepresentation was
by throwing open the gallery and making the debates
and decisions of the house as public as possible.' ^ As
late as 1803 it was complained that, when Pitt was
making a great speech on the French war, ' by a new
arrangement of the Speaker's, strangers were excluded
till so late an hour that the newspaper printers could
not get in, and of course no part of Pitt's speech can
be printed.' ^ We are now and then reminded, even at
the present day, that reporters are only admitted to the
galleries by favour, and for a long while after that
favour had come to be regarded as almost a right, they
were not allowed to write down in the gallery aj:iy-
thing they had heard. In 1807, for instance, some
commotion was caused by a member of the House of
Lords who called attention to the fact that a stranger
was taking notes.^

William Woodfall's unusual powers of memory were,
under these conditions, of immense service to him and
the readers he catered for, and his lively reports secured
great popularity for ' The Morning Chronicle,' though
many others did their utmost to rival him, and borrowed

' Parliamentary History, vol. xviii. pp. 221, 540, 963, 1325 ; vol. xiz.
p. 647.

^ MaJ.meshury Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 262.

' The Court and Cabinets of George III., vol. iv. p. 150.

218 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS oh. ra.

largely from his reports. He came to be an autocrat
in this department of newspaper work, and naturally
set a high value on his achievements. His critics
laughed at him for expecting that the House of Com-
mons should consult his convenience rather than that
he should meekly adapt himself to its plans. ' Yes,
sir,' he said to a friend who commiserated with him one
day on his arduous labours, ' and Charles Fox to have
a debate on a Saturday! What, does he think the
reporters are made of iron ? ' ^

Though he profited much by the success with which
Wilkes and others had fought out the battle with the
government which his reporting zeal had done much
to bring about, WiUiam Woodfall was not a Willdte,
perhaps less of an one than his elder brother. He and
his associates on ' The Morning Chronicle ' were fond
of sneering at the city democrats. ' Squib upon squib,'
we read in the number for May 4, 1772, 'is daily
thrown out against that unfortunate man Wilkes, the
undoubted consequence of envy from some and malice
fi'om others ; but he, notwithstanding, as daily im-
proves in his lustre as a diamond would do in the
furnace, and while he laughs at the bowlings of his.
enemies, he concludes with this thought, that if flies,
buzz about one it is foolish to take notice of them, and
only deems it necessary to crush them whenever they
attempt to sting — and, good God, how seldom does that
happen ! They bark and rave, but do not bite.' And
lest anyone should miss the irony, it was added, after
an intervening paragraph, ' Never more let it be
believed that he whose private character exhibits one
continued scene of fraud and villany can ever make a
real honest patriot. The same heart must and will
operate in the same man, whether he is in the closet or
' John Taylor, Records of my Life, vol. ii. p. 249.

1769-1788. 'THE MORNING CHRONICLE' 219

in the senate. For sncli an one to acknowledge his
frauds upon individuals, and yet pretend honesty to the
multitude, is such a glaring inconsistency that it re-
quires the prejudice of the blindest partiality to be for
a moment deceived by so flimsy a defence.'

Short pungent paragraphs like those, though by
no means an invention of William Woodfall's, were
a speciality of ' The Morning Chronicle ' under his
management, and did much to make it attractive.
About a dozen or fifteen, filling a column or more,
generally appeared every day unless they were displaced
by long parHamentary reports or other matter, and
were in lieu of elaborate leading articles or such letters
as were plentiful in ' The Public Advertiser,' though of
these there was a fair sprinkling. Another point on
which the younger Woodfall set great store was his
dramatic criticism. Whenever he was not in the gallery
or his editor's room, he was in a theatre or one of the
coffee-houses frequented by Garrick, Foote, and the
other actors of his day. ' He was so passionately fond
of theatrical representations,' we are told, ' as never to
have missed the first performance of a new piece for
at least forty years, and the public had so good an
opinion of his taste that his criticisms were decisive of
the fall or fortune of the piece and the performer.' ^ The
copious notices of new plays that appeared in ' The
Morning Chronicle ' are a neglected mine of wealth for
students of theatrical history. Besides these careful and
usually intelligent dramatic criticisms, moreover, a great
feature of ' The Morning Chronicle ' was its daily column
or half-column of 'masquerade intelligence.' With such
material, and with miscellaneous news, about seven or
eight of the sixteen columns of the paper were generally
Allied, bhe rest being occupied with advertisements.

' Nichols, literary Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 304.

220 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. Tir.

One of the many anecdotes on record about William
Woodfall illustrates Richard Brinsley Sheridan's cha- ■
racter more than his. A scurrilous attack on Sheridan
having appeared in ' The Bath Chronicle,' the play-
wright and politician asked his friend to reprint it
in 'The Morning Chronicle.' Woodfall objected to help
in circulating a slander which in its original form had
not obtained wide hearing. ' That is the very reason,'
replied Sheridan, ' for as I can refute every part of that
letter, I wish the attack and the answer spread over
the kingdom instead of being confined to a provincial
paper.' The article was therefore reprinted, but, it is
added, ' Mr. Sheridan, though applied to for the refuta-
tion, never wrote a syllable on the subject, and, from
mere negligence or contempt, thus disseminated a
calumny against himself.' ^

A prominent, and for some time an impudent, rival
of ' The Morning Chronicle ' and ' The Public Ad-
vertiser ' was ' The Morning Post and Daily Advertiser,'
commenced in November 1772, in a form designed to
€vade the stamp duty, but soon reshaped as a regular
newspaper and a shameless organ of the king's party
and the ministry now presided over by Lord North.
Its editor from 1775 till 1780 was Henry Bate, a young
clergyman, who, inheriting a' large fortune and assuming
his benefactor's name of Dudley in the latter year, was
afterwards made a baronet and died in 1824 as Sir
Henry Bate Dudley.^ In the opinion of his friends
Bate was ' constituted both in mind and body for the
army or navy rather than for the church.' ^ He wrote
licentious plays in the intervals of his gallantries and
■debaucheries and of his somewhat more serious work on

' John Taylor, vol. ii. p. 122.

" Public Characters of all Nations (1823), vol. i. p. 538.

' John Taylor, vol. i. p. 102.

1772-1780. 'THE MORNING POST' 221

' The Morning Post.' ' There was a sportive severity
in his writings,' we are told, ' which gave a new cha-
racter to the public press. It may be said that he was
too personal in his strictures in general and in his
allusions to many characters of his time, but it may also
be said that they were generally characters of either
sex who had rendered themselves conspicuous for folly,
vice, or some prominent absurdity by which they be-
came proper objects for satirical animadversion.' And it
is added that ' he saw so much of the vice and vanity
of the world as to excite something of misanthropic
feeling, which gave vigour, spirit, and severity to his
pen.' ^ He was a scurrilous writer, and under his
management ' The Morning Post ' acquired an evil
reputation as a retailer of coarse social gossip, besides
being an advocate of the debasing policy of the ministry,
and this reputation it did what it could] to maintain
for some time after he left it. Bate ' was the ' certain
clergyman of extraordinary character who, by exerting
his talents in writing on temporary topics and display-
ing uncommon intrepidity, had raised himself to afflu-
ence,' and concerning whom Bos well says he ' maiatained
that we ought not to be indignant at his success, for
merit of every sort was entitled to reward.' ' Sir,'
answered Dr. Johnson, ' I wiU not allow this man to
have merit ; no, sir, what he has is rather the contrary.
I will, indeed, allow him courage, and on this account
we so far give him credit. We have more respect for a
man who robs boldly on the highway than for a fellow
who jumps out of a ditch and knocks you down behind
your back. Courage is a quality so necessary for main-
taining virtue that it is always respected, even when it
is associated with vice.' ^

1 John Taylor, vol. i. pp. 102, 104.
' Boswell, Life of Johnson, chap. Iv.

222 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. nr.

Bate's vice-tainted courage was put to ttie test on
January 13, 1777, when lie was challenged by Greorge
Robinson Stoney for publishing some gross libels on
Lady Strathmore in ' The Morning Post.' ' Mr. Bate,'
it is reported, ' had taken every possible method con-
sistent with honour to convince Mr. Stoney that the
insertion of the paragraphs was wholly without his
knowledge, to which Mr. Stoney gave no credit, and
insisted on the satisfaction of a gentleman or the dis-
covery of the author. This happened some days before,
but meeting, as it were by accident, in the Strand on
the day here mentioned, they adjourned to the Adelphi
tavern, called for a room, shut the door, and being
furnished with pistols, discharged them at each other
without effect. They then drew swords, and Mr.
Stoney received a wound in the breast and arm, and
Mr. Bate one in the thigh. Mr. Bate's sword bent and
slanted against the captaia's breastbone, which Mr.
Bate apprising him of. Captain Stoney called to him to
straighten it, and in the interim while the sword was
under his foot for that purpose, the door was broken
open, or the death of one of the parties would most
certainly have been the issue.' ^

In 1780 Bate was prosecuted for libelling the
Duke of Richmond by charging him, in ' The Morning
Post,' with treasonably communicating with the French
whose invasion of England was then feared, and for
this offence he was sentenced to twelve months' im-
prisonment.^ His connection with ' The Morning Post '
was thus severed, but he soon afterwards, as Bate
Dudley, started ' The Morning Herald,' the first number

' Qentlemari's Magazine, February 1777. ' It certainly seems almost
incredible to a person living in our time,' said Maoaulay in his review of
Oroker's Boswell, ' that any human being should ever have stooped to
fight with a writer in The Morning Post.'

^ Douglas, Reports of Cases in the King's Bencn, p. 376.

1777-1788. EAELY EDITORS OF ' THE MORNING POST ' 223

■of which appeared on November 1 in the same year.
This new paper, of which we shall see something here-
after, became the organ of the Prince of Wales's party
in the opposition it offered to the king and his minis-
ters, and as such it had considerable influence. Four
years earlier, in November 1776, another daUy paper,
^ The General Advertiser,' had been commenced by
William Cooke, but neither of these two was at this
time of much importance.

After Bate's removal from ' The Morning Post ' it was
edited by another and a yet more unworthy clergyman,
William Jackson, who under the pseudonym of Curtius
had cruelly libelled Foote in ' The Public Ledger, ' and who
was connected with ' The Whitehall Evening Post ' and
other papers. He had charge of ' The Morning Post ' in
1784, when, as Scrutineer, he fiercely attacked Fox on
the occasion of his election for Westminster, but in such
a way as to keep clear of an action for libel. Jackson's
style of controversy pleased some readers. ' He was,'
according to one of his colleagues, ' a very able writer,
and gave such a variety to his political compositions
as rendered them very amusing as well as expressive.'
He had faults, however, one of which was that ' he
generally wrote in a very large hand upon very large
sheets of paper, which appeared like maps or atlases
spread over the table.' ' The proprietor,' it is added,
' unexpectedly entering the room one evening, suddenly
retreated in dismay, and afterwards observed that Mr.
Jackson should be dismissed, otherwise he would ruin
the property by the vast quantity of paper he used in
writing his political articles.' ^ But the threat was not
acted upon, and Jackson was allowed to waste paper
during some years upon his scurrilous scribbling.

After him ' The Morniag Post ' was entrusted to a

■ John Taylor, vol. ii. pp. 269, 323-328.

224 THE TVOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. vir.

slightly better man, John Taylor, the author of
' Monsieur Tonson,' who had previously been its dramatic
critic, and who was avowedly promoted to the editor-
ship in order that he might forward the cause of a
clique at court in return for a substantial bribe. Dr.
Wolcott, best known as Peter Pindar, wrote ' whimsi-
cal articles ' under Taylor, who said ' Mr. Merry and I
used to scribble verses in conjunction.' ' I have often,'
Taylor reported, ' remained at the office till three o'clock
in the morning to revise, correct, and guard against the
accidental insertion of any improper article, moral or
political.' He was not kept up so late, however, by
business alone. ' We were pleasantly supplied with
punch,' he acknowledged, ' and as far as our limited
party admitted, the meeting might be considered as
Comus's court.' But this bacchanalian editor only held
his post for two years. He was dismissed because the
proprietor, as he tells us, ' thought I had not devil
enough for the conduct of a public journal.' Of the
proprietor who thus judged him, and who was the same
who objected to Jackson's extravagant use of paper, but
whose name is not recorded, Taylor had no high opinion.
One of his malicious stories about him is that he once
complained that there were not enough ' antidotes ' in
the paper. He meant ' anecdotes,' says Taylor, but ' not
understanding the meaning of the word, it is not won-
derful he should have forgotten the sound.' ^

In such hands ' The Morning Post ' could hardly be
expected to take high rank as a guide of public opinion,
' The Morning Chronicle ' also lost ground for a time,
and William Woodfall quarrelled with its proprietors.
In 1788 he started a new evening paper, ' The Diary,'
intended to give more fully than ever the parliamentary
reports and theatrical criticisms in which he prided him-

1 John Taylor, vol. ii. pp. 265-270.

1788. KEW CONDITIONS OF JOUBNALISM 225

self, but ttis venture was not successful. ' Unfortunately
for himself and his family,' says his friendly biographer,
' he placed all his hopes on the most precarious species
of property, and became the proprietor of a newspaper
which his talents raised to eminence. But the talents
of no individual could secure it a permanent station
upon that eminence. The paper feU, and with it fell his
hopes.' He died in 1803, and his elder brother, Henry
Sampson WoodfaU, who had parted with ' The Public
Advertiser' in 1793, followed him two years afterwards,
in 1805.^ Other men had long before superseded them
as leaders of newspaper enterprise.

Journalism was making progress in spite of all the
efforts of court and parliament to repress it, whether by
attacking those who ventured upon bold criticism of the
authorities and bold advocacy of popular rights, by con-
tinuance of Walpole's policy of bribery, or by heaping
fiscal burdens upon it. These fiscal burdens were made
very heavy by successive acts of parliament passed in
George Ill.'s reign. Both the stamp duty of a halfpenny
on every half-sheet sold and the tax of a shilling on
every advertisement printed, which had been imposed
in 1712, had been doubled in 1757. The stamp duty
was raised to three-halfpence in 1776, and to two-pence
in 1789. The newspapers, however, were not only en-
larged from time to time until they reached the full
limit of size allowed under the Stamp Act, but, notwith-
standing the higher prices it was necessary to charge
for them, there was an almost constant increase iu the
number of copies distributed. The stamps issued by
the treasury in 1753 amounted to 7,411,757, in 1760
to 9,464,790, and in 1775, to 12,680,000, showmg a
growth during two-and-twenty years of the daUy
average from 23,673 to 41,615. The year's number of

' Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, vol. i. pp. 301, 303.
VOL. I. Q

226 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. th.

stamps, however, liad only risen to 14,217,371 in 1780,
and ten years later, in 1790, doubtless in consequence
of the augmented duty, it had fallen to 14,035,639.'-

These were small aggregates for all the daily, weekly,
and other newspapers circulated in Great Britain,
when compared with the figures of the present time,
but they were thought large a century ago, and many
besides Crabbe were amazed at the variety and profu-
sion of the journalistic literature offered to the public.

For, soon as morning dawns with, roseate hue,
The ' Herald ' of the morn arises too,
' Post ' after ' Post ' succeeds, and all day long
' Gazettes ' and ' Ledgers ' swarm, a motley throng.
When evening comes she comes with all her train
Of ' Ledgers,' ' Chronicles,' and 'Posts ' again,
Like bats appearing, when the sun goes down,
From holes obscure and corners of the town.

Crabbe's account of the varied matter contained ia
the newspapers of his day, and of the ways, sometimes
more clever than honest, in which they met the require-
ments of all classes, is amusing.

Some, champions for the rights that prop the crown ;
Some, sturdy patriots, sworn to puU them down ;
Some, neutral powers, with secret forces fraught,
Wishing for war, but willing to be bought ;
While some to every side and party go,
Shift every friend, and join with every foe ;
Like sturdy rogues in privateers, they strike
This side and that the foes of both alike —
A traitor crew, who thrive in troubled times,
Feared for their force, and courted for their crimes.
Such are our guides. How many a peaceful head.
Bom to be still, have they to wrangling led !
How many an honest zealot stolen from trade,
And faction's tools of pious pastors made !

Crabbe was severe on the papers which fomented

1 Timperley, Encyclopedia of Literary and Typographical Anecdotes,
p. 806.

1785. CEABBE UPON NEWSPAPERS 227

party strife, and yet more on those in wMch anonymous
•writers sought to degrade and corrupt society.

Screened by such means, here scandal whets her quill ;
Here slander shoots unseen, whene'er she will ;
Here fraud and falsehood labour to deceive,
And folly aids them both, impatient to believe.

Yet he was forced to admit that his warnings were in
vain.

To you all readers turn ; and they can look
Pleased on a paper, who abhor a book.
Those who ne'er deigned their Bible to peruse.
Would think it hard to be denied their news.
Sinners and saints, the wisest with the weak,
Here mingle tastes and one amusement seek.
This, like the public inn, provides a treat
Where each promiscuous guest sits down to eat,
And such this mental food, as we may call
Something to all men, and to some men all.

The ' motley page ' of the newspaper, according to
Crabbe, afforded entertainment ' to either sex and
every age,' as soon as, brought into the house ' damp
from the press,' it had been dried before the fire.

Then eager every eye surveys the part
That brings its favourite subject to the heart :
Grave politicians look for facts alone,
And gravely add conjectures of their own ;
The sprightly nymph, who never broke her rest
For tottering crowns or mighty lands oppressed,
Finds broils and battles, but neglects them all
For songs and suits, a birthday or a ball :
The keen warm man o'erlooks each idle tale
For ' Moneys Wanted ' and ' Estates on Sale ' ;
While some with equal minds to all attend,
Pleased with each part, and grieved to find an end.
So charm the news. But we, who far from town.
Wait till the postman brings the packet down.
Once in a week a vacant day behold.
And stay for tidings till they're three days old.
That day arrives : no welcome post appears,
But the dull morn a suUen aspect wears ;

0 2

228 THE WOODFALLS AND OTHERS ch. tu.

We meet, but, ah ! without our wonted smile.
To talk of headaches and complain of bile :
Sullen we ponder o'er a dull repast,
Nor feast the body while the mind must fast.
A master passion is the love of news :
Not music so commands, nor so the muse.
Give poets claret, they grow idle soon :
Peed the musician, and he's out of tune :
But the sick mind, of this disease possessed,
Flies from all cure and sickens when at rest. '

' Crabbe, The Newspaper (1786).

229

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LIBEL ACT.
BEFOEE AND AFTEK 1792.

The passing of the Libel Act in 1792 was a momentous
incident in newspaper history. The freedom of the
press was not finally secured by it. Its immediate con-
sequences, indeed, or rather the consequences of the
political turmoil that caused it, were for awhile ap-
parently, and with more than appearance to the parties
most concerned, in many ways disastrous. But it was
a. solid basis for the buUding up of fresh liberties, and
ail that seemed disastrous at the time helped to promote
and expand those liberties, and to prepare the way for
new departures.

Whether or not Lord Mansfield's direction to the
juries before whom Henry Sampson Woodfall and others
were tried in the summer of 1770 for publishing
Junius's letter to King George III. was as unwarrant-
able as Junius, and critics more trustworthy and less
biassed than Junius, declared it to be, it established a
pernicious precedent by which newspapers suffered grie-
vously during many years, and which was only upset
after a prolonged struggle. That direction, as we have
seen, in effect laid it down that it was the function of
the crown or the government, not of a jury, to decide
whether any published matter complamed of was libel-
lous, that all a jury had to do was to ascertain whether

230 THE LIBEL ACT ch. vrii.

the person accused of publishing it had really done so.
Actions for libel initiated by private persons were only,
of course, affected by Lord Mansfield's ruling in so far
as they were court favourites whose cases were taken
up by the government, and thus in effect made occa-
sions for crown prosecutions. But most of the actions
for libel brought m George III.'s reign, and for some
time afterwards, were either of this latter sort or
avowedly crown cases, raised for the punishment of
political offenders ; and a most dangerous weapon was
placed in the hands of ministers and courtiers. Lord
Camden, who was a great lawyer, but in no sense a
democrat, saw the danger, and boldly declared in the
House of Peers that ' Lord Mansfield's doctrine is not
the law of England.' ^ It passed for law, however, until
1792, in spite of repeated protests by many besides Lord
Camden.

There was an important debate on the subject in the
House of Commons on December 6, 1770, when Mr.
Serjeant Glyn moved for a committee 'to inquire into
the administration of criminal justice and the proceed-
ings of the judges in Westminster Hall, particularly in
cases affecting the liberty of the press, and the consti-
tutional power and duty of juries.' Charles James Fox,
not then a reformer, prevailed upon the house, though
only by a majority of six, to approve the course adopted
by the government for putting a stop to ' infamous lam-
poons and satires,' to pay no heed to the impudent
demands of incapable outsiders, and to rest content with
the guidance of ' blameless judges,' subject to such con-
trol as parliament was fit to exercise over them. ' Let
us,' he said, ' act according to the dictates of honour and
conscience, and be at peace with our own minds. It is
thus that we shall sooner or later regain the confidence

' Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 1321.

1770. ME. SEBJEANT GLYN'S MOTION 231

of our constituents if we have lost it, and not by
humouring, as foolish nurses humour great lubberly
boys, the wayward whims of a misled multitude. The
characteristic of this house should be a firm and manly
steadiness, an unshaken perseverance in the pursuit of
great and noble plans of general utility, and not a waver-
ing, inconstant fluctuation of counsels, regulated by the
shifting of the popular breeze. If we are not to judge
for ourselves, but to be ever at the command of the
vulgar, and their capricious shouts and hisses, I cannot
see what advantage the nation can reap from a repre-
sentative body which they might not have reaped from a
tumultuous assembly of themselves, collected at random
on Salisbury Plain or Eunnymede.' In an eloquent
speech Burke vainly protested against such language,
and insisted both on the right of the nation to criticise
the actions of the House of Commons nominally elected
by it, and on the right of juries to settle all questions of
fact in libel cases as well as in others which were
nominally submitted to them. As for juries, he said,
they might err, but so might judges, and the surest way
of judges' falling into error was for them to ' pretend to
superior sanctity,' and to claim an authority not legally
possessed by them. Domineered over by such judges
the courts must lose all their value. ' To the people
they appear the temples of idols and false oracles, or
rather as the dwellings of truth and justice converted
into dens of thieves and robbers. For what greater
robbers can there be than those who rob men of their
laws and liberties ? ' ^

It was in some respects unfortunate that the ques-
tions as to the function of juries in libel cases and the
liberty of the press were as much mixed up as they were

' William Woodfall's report of the debate, cited in a note to the
preface of Letters of Junius.

232 THE LIBEL ACT ch. vni.

at tliis time with the agitation led by Wilkes and his
friends. Men like Burke and Junius, disliking Wilkes,
had the good sense to distinguish between the agitators
and the prmciples they fought for ; but there were few
such, and the majority in parhament as well as all the
courtiers were wUling enough to stifle liberty, if they
could, in their efforts to crush its blustering champions.
The fate of Mr. Serjeant Gljm's motion in December
1770, therefore, was shared by a similar motion brought
forward by Dowdeswell on March 7, 1771. ' Whereas
doubts and controversies have arisen at various times
concerning the rights of jurors to try the whole matter
laid in indictments and informations for seditious and
other libels, and whereas trials by juries would be of
none or imperfect effect if the jurors were not held to be
competent to try the whole matter aforesaid,' Dowdes-
well's bill proposed ' that jurors, duly impanelled and
sworn to try the issue between the king and the de-
fendant upon any indictment or information for a sedi-
tious libel, or a libel under any other denomination or
description, shall be held and reputed competent to all
intents and purposes, in law and in right, to try every
part of the matter laid or charged in such indictment or
information, comprehending the criminal intention of
the defendant and the civil tendency of the libel charged,
as well as the mere fact of the publication thereof, and
the application hy innuendo of blanks, initial letters,
pictures, and other devices ; any opinion, question, am-
biguity, or doubt to the contrary notwithstanding.' Sir
Greorge Savile seconded this motion, Burke supported
it in one of his ablest speeches, and several other
members argued in favour of its principle, while not a
single minister or ministerialist opposed it in debate. ^

' Parliamentary jffistory, vol. xvii. p. 43 ; The Public Advertiser,
March 13, 1771 ; Burke's Worlcs, vol. x. p. 109 (1812 edition).

1771. DOWDESWELL'S LIBEL BILL 233

It was shelved, however, on a question of adjournment,
hy a majority of 218 to 72, and parliament was too
busy with other subjects to reconsider the matter during
twenty years.

Meanwhile there was a long series of press prosecu-
tions by the crown, conducted on the lines laid down by
Lord Mansfield,^ and many came to be of the same
opinion as John Almon, a frequent victim of this perse-
cution, who said, ' A man had better make his son a
tinker than a printer or a bookseller. The laws of tin
he can understand, but the law of libel is unwritten,
uncertain, and undefinable. It is one thing to-day and
another to-morrow. No man can tell what it is. It is
sometimes what the king or queen pleases ; sometimes
what the minister pleases ; sometimes what the attorney-
general pleases.'^

Almon appears to have been the author of an article
which appeared in ' The London Evening Post ' for
February 2, 1773, in which the notorious Earl of Sand-
wich, Wilkes's friend at one time and bitter enemy at
another, and now the first lord of the admiralty, was
accused of having sold an ofiice of trust in his depart-
ment for 2,000Z. The accusation was well supported by
evidence adduced at the trial, and hardly denied by
Sandwich, whose character was so well known that it
could not be damaged by any statement made against
him. But both Almon and the publisher, John Miller,
the same man who had defied the government and
parliament in 1771 when assailed for printing Ahnon's

1 In the Parliamentary Papers in 1830 (No. 608) is a ' return of aU.
prosecutions during the reigns of George III. and George IV. under the
•direction of the attorney or the solicitor-general, for libels or other mis-
demeanours against members of his majesty's government, or against
other persons acting in their official capacity.'

" Bentham's description was more concise. ' Anything which any man,
at any time, for any reason, chooses to be offended with, is a libel.'

234 THE LIBEL ACT oh. vm,

reports of debates, were obnoxious to the authorities.
Accordingly Miller was brought up for trial in June,
and Lord Mansfield, insisting that the attempt to prove
the truth of the allegation aggravated its wickedness,
induced the compliant jury to give a verdict for 2,000^.^
That was a penalty almost ruinous to the paper, and
unparalleled in those days. Sixteen months later, on
November 21, 1774, Fox only obtained lOOZ. for a libel
upon him which had been published by John Wilhams,
who, however, was also imprisoned for a month. On
July 3, 1776, moreover, though Lord Bolingbroke
claimed 2,000Z. on account of disparaging remarks upon
him which William Woodfall had published in ' The
Morning Chronicle,' only 20Z. was awarded him ; and on
the 10th of the same month an action brought by Lord
Chatham against Henry Sampson Woodfall of ' The
Public Advertiser ' was dismissed.^ The Woodfalls
were not in favour with the authorities, but neither
were Chatham and Bolingbroke, and consequently we
may assume that justice in these cases was allowed to
take its course.

More important than these libel cases, or scores of
others that might be mentioned, was one which occurred
in 1778, but in which, though it forms part of the
history of the struggle for liberty of the press, no news-
paper was concerned. For issuing what was considered
a seditious pamphlet, the then dean of St. Asaph was
condemned under Lord Mansfield's ruling. Erskme, at
that time a young man of twenty-eight, and only just
called to the bar, made his start in forensic life as comisel
for the defence, and, the case gomg against him, moved
for a new trial. This was refused ; but Erskine con-

• Almon, Biographical, Literary, and Personal Anecdotes, vol. i, nn
287-321. "^^

" Andre-wa, vol. i. p. 209.

1773-1778. SEVERAL PRESS PROSECUTIONS 235

trived to get the dean discliarged on another issue,
and the proceedings afforded him opportunity for a
masterly exposition of the fallacy and iniquity of the
law of libel as it was then interpreted, which Lord
Mansfield sneered at as 'puerile rant and declamation,'
but which Fox declared to be ' the finest argument in
the English language.' ^ It converted Fox to opinions
he had formerly denounced, and was the commencement,
not only of Erskine's splendid career as a lawyer, but
also of his persistent advocacy all through that career
of fi*eedom, within reasonable limits, in the utterance of
opinion.

An inferior man whom the state of the libel law
helped to bring into prominence was John Home,
known after 1782 as Home Tooke. He had begun in
emulation of Junius to write for ' The Public Adver-
tiser' in 1769, and had in 1770 been fined 400^. for
libelling George Onslow, but had apparently avoided
paying the money by, as Junius alleged, selling himself
to the ministry.^ He quarrelled with WUkes, Junius,,
and all the leading men with whom he professed to be
associated for the public good, and on his own showing
he fairly earned the contempt with which they regarded
him. Like many other unworthy agitators, however,
he sometimes did useful work. He was a prominent
organiser of a Society for the Support of the BiU of
Eights, which found funds for carrying on the popular
movements in which Wilkes and his Mends were en-
gaged, and also for the maintenance of its promoters ;
and after he had seceded from that organisation he
founded a Constitutional Society for forwarding in Eng-
land the interests of the disaffected American colonies.
Home throve on libels. At one time, in 1774, his

' May, Constitutional History, chapter is.
" Letters of Junius, No. 52.

:236 THE LIBEL ACT ch. vnr.

wealthy friend "William Tooke, whose name and fortune
he inherited, being anxious to prevent an Enclosure Bill
which would interfere with his property, Home de-
liberately wrote for ' The Public Advertiser ' a scurrilous
letter attacking Sir Fletcher Norton, the Speaker of the
House of Commons. This letter, as he calculated,
called attention to the matter in which he was in-
terested, and seems to have achieved its object. As
Home had influence with the government, moreover,
he and Henry Sampson Woodfall received no heavier
punishment than a reprimand for publishing it. Wood-
fall at other times, and many others, had to suffer more
severely for the busybody's recklessness. In February
1777, John Miller and three other printers were fined
100?. apiece for publishing the ' treasonable ' announce-
ments of the Constitutional Society, and Home was
himself in the following July brought before Lord
Mansfield and ordered to pay a fine of 200Z., and to
be imprisoned for twelve months, for sending similar
announcements to ' The Morning Chronicle,' ' The
PubHc Advertiser,' and ' The London Packet.' If the
fine was paid, it was doubtless by some one else, and,
through his friendly relations with the authorities,
Home's imprisonment was only nominal.^

In many cases, it may be assumed, the vindictive
sentences of imprisonment passed upon printers, pub-
lishers, and authors, for alleged libels were either not
•enforced or made light and curtailed by the good nature
or the corruptibility of the gaolers. Were it not so, the
King's Bench and other prisons would always have been

' Andrews, vol. i. pp. 213-218. Home Tooke, who henceforth had
Uttle to do with newspapers, is chiefly memorahle on account of his trial
for treason in 1794, when Erskine, by one of his most famous speeches,
procured his acquittal. Professor Thorold Rogers has written an
■elaborate apology for liim in his Historical Essays, where Wilkes is less
kindly dealt with.

1777-1786. SEVEEAL PKESS PEOSECUTIONS 237

overcrowded, and the newspaper men hardly ever at
their posts. In 1781 a single paragraph — or the same
paragraph with slight variations, and in one case some-
what elaborated — which had given offence to the Russian
ambassador, brought heavy punishments on seven per-
sons. On July 4 the printer of ' The London Courant,'
who had first issued the paragraph, was ordered to be
kept in prison for a year, after standing for an hour in
the pillory outside the Royal Exchange ; the printer of
' The Noon Gazette,' a short-lived paper, in which it
had appeared in an aggravated form, was condemned to
prison for eighteen months, and fined 200^. ; the pub-
lisher of ' The Morning Herald,' which Henry Bate
Dudley had started in the previous year, was fined
100^. and committed to prison for twelve months ; and.
Mary Say, the printer of ' The Gazetteer,' was, in con-
sideration of her sex, let off with half a year's imprison-
ment and a fine of 50^. And on July 5 two printers of
' The Middlesex Journal ' and the printers of ' The St.
James's Chronicle ' were, on account of the same
paragraph, fined 100^. each, the first two being also
imprisoned for a year.-^

These and all the earlier newspaper prosecutions
had been conducted under Lord North's administration,
and the policy was not altered till after Lord Mansfield
had ceased, in 1788, to be chief justice. It was con-
tinued by the younger Pitt, who became premier in
1784, after efforts had been successively made by Lord
Rockingham, by Lord Shelburne, and by Fox and
North to govern the country. In February 1 786 ' The
Morninff Herald ' and ' The General Advertiser ' ventured
to repeat a scandal then current to the effect that Pitt
had used his official knowledge to help him in specu-
lating on the Stock Exchange to the extent of 10,000/.,

^ Gentleman's Magazine, August 1781.

238 THE LIBEL ACT ch. Tirr.

and for this lie claimed damages from each paper to a
like amount. Juries were growing more independent,
however, and Erskine was counsel for the defendants ;
so, although verdicts were given against them, the
fines were limited, in the one case to 250Z., and in the
other to 1501} In the same year Henry Sampson
Woodfall had to pay 100^. for libelhng Burke, and
another 100/. to Lord Loughborough, the chief justice
of the Court of Common Pleas, for ' intending to vilify
him by causing him to be suspected of being in bad
circumstances, and not able to pay his debts or willing
to pay them without an execution.' ^ Li 1788 Mary Say,
of ' The Gazetteer,' was again prosecuted, this time for
certain disparaging remarks about Pitt with reference
to the impeachment of Sir EHjah Impey, and in 1790
Sampson Perry, editor of a scurrilous paper, ' The
Argus,' was fined and imprisoned for accusing Pitt of
having, for stock-jobbing purposes, falsified an announce-
ment in ' The Gazette ' and kept back important in-
telligence respectiug the Nootka Sound difficulty.^

Libels of that sort, intended to prejudice the prime
minister, and at a time when England was deeply in-
volved in complications about to result in its stupendous
war with France, certainly deserved some punishment
— that is, if the government of the day was unwise
enough to think that it could improve its position by
quarrelling with obscure slanderers ; and by this time
the way was prepared for a reversal of the tyrannical
interference with the rights of juries which Lord Mans-
field had insisted upon. Without that arbitrary
strengthening of the power of the crown, as later events
abundantly demonstrated, the crown had ample means
of tyranny, and there was no further need for Lord

' Almon, vol. i. pp. 360-366. ^ Andrews, vol. i. p. 228.

" Knight Hunt, vol. ii. p. 65.

1786-1790. SEVERAL PEESS PROSECUTIONS 239

Mansfield's precedent. A memorable trial which had
occurred in 1789 helped materially to bring about the
long-deferred reform.

In this case, as in that of 1779, Erskine was the
victor, and the second, like the first, was not a news-
paper case, though one directly affecting the interests of
newspapers. All through the years during which the
impeachment of Warren Hastings was being threatened
and carried on, the daily and weekly papers teemed
with articles, letters, and paragraphs on the subject in
which strong language was used on both sides ; but
little notice was taken of it.^ A pamphlet written by a
clergyman named Logan, and issued by Stockdale, the
publisher, in 1789, denouncing the House of Commons
as corrupt and unjust, and aaigrily supporting the cause
of the defendant in the trial which had been commenced
a year before, was, however, held to be a scandalous
and seditious libel. Proceedings were instituted against
Stockdale, and the jury was expected, as usual, to do
no more than certify the fact of publication, leaving the
crown to arrange nearly all the rest. Fortunately Lord
Kenyon was now chief justice, and he allowed Erskine,
as Stockdale' s champion, to insist on his being judged,

' In 1788 Markliam, a member of the House of Commons, called at-
tention to a newspaper paragraph stating ' that the trial of Mr. Hastings
■was to be put oflf for another session, unless the House of Lords had
spirit enough to put an end to so shameful a business.' ' After some re-
marks upon the scandalous licentiousness of the press,' we read in The
Annual Register (vol. xxxi. p. 164), ' a motion was made and carried
unanimously for prosecuting the printer of the paper. In the course of
the conversation that this motion gave rise to, Mr. Burke read from one
of the public prints a curious paper, purporting to be a bill of charges
made by the editor upon Major Scott for sundry articles inserted in the
paper on his account. They chiefly consisted of speeches, letters, para-
graphs, composed by him, and amongst the rest was this item, ' " For
attacking the veracity of Mr. Burke, 3s. Gd." ' Major Scott was the
agent whom Warren Hastings unwisely employed to excite and keep up
public interest in his case against the charges brought against him.

240 THE LIBEL ACT as. Tnr.

not by detached extracts from the pamphlet, but by
its general tenour. This, Erskine urged, should excuse
if it did not justify particular expressions that might
be objected to ; and he laid down so clearly and forcibly
the duty of allowing fall and free discussion of public
questions in print as well as by word of mouth, that the
jury, accepting his arguments, which Kenyon did not
dispute, returned a verdict of not guilty.^ There was
nothing very remarkable about this case except the fact
that Erskine won it, and by such forensic tact and
eloquence that all reasonable men were convinced of the
propriety of effecting a reform which should leave the
press less at the mercy of domineering judges and
ministerial tools, and less dependent on the chance of
juries being exceptionally bold and counsel being
exceptionally able.

On May 20, 1791, Fox, who had just broken from
Burke and had personal as well as public reasons for
checking, if he could not crush the great power that
Pitt had now acquired, proposed in the House of Com-
mons a bill that should explain and amend the law of
libel. Erskine' s demonstration of the evUs to be re-
medied, he said, was ' so eloquent, so luminous, and
so convincing, that it wanted in opposition to it not
a man but a giant,' and he preferred manly accep-
tance to gigantic defiance of sound constitutional views.
Erskine seconded the motion, and stated his views yet
once again with overwhelming force, pointing out the
absurdity as well as the illegality of the rule then
followed, seeing that, 'if upon a motion in arrest of
judgment the innocence of the defendant's intention
was argued before the court, the answer would be and
was given uniformly, that the verdict of guilty had con-
cluded the criminality of the intention, though the con-

' May, Constitutional Sistory, chap. ix.

1792. THE LIBEL ACT 241

sideration of that question had been, by the judge's
authority, wholly withdrawn from the jury at the trial.'
Even the government sanctioned the proposal, Pitt
declaring that it would be expedient ' to regulate the
practice of the courts in the trial of libels, and render it
conformable to the spirit of the constitution.' Eox's
bill was introduced and quickly passed through all its
stages in the House of Commons. The session was far
advanced when it reached the House of Peers, however,
and then Lord Thurlow, by getting it postponed for a
month, contrived to shelve it for a year.^

It was brought forward again on March 20, 1792,
quickly and unanimously passed through the House of
Commons, and, after much opposition in the House of
Peers, Lord Thurlow and five others formally protest-
ing against it as a sure prelude to ' the confusion and
destruction of the law of England,' this notable and in
its way most valuable Libel Act found a place in the
statute book before the end of the session. It con-
demned by implication all the arbitrary proceedings of
successive governments against newspapers in respect
of real or pretended libels during the first half of
George III.'s long reign, and, while securing for writers
and printers, so far as could be, the right of fuU and
honest trial before juries of their peers, it actually
strengthened the hands of ministers in their efforts to
put down what they regarded as newspaper sedition.
Its immediate outcome or sequel, indeed, was a great
increase of press prosecutions, though conducted with
less contempt of the law, during, the second half of
the reign.

Much progress had been made and much fresh tur-
moil had arisen since the time of Wilkes's 'No. 45,' and
of Junius's letters. King George, having broken loose

' Farliamentary History, vol. xsix. pp. 551-602, 726-742.
VOL. I. R

242 THE LIBEL ACT ch. Tin.

from the guidance of his mischievous mother and of
such obnoxious courtiers as Lord Bute, liad improved
upon their teaching and developed new follies and
political vices. He had no-w troublesome sons of his
own to deal with, and a fresh generation of evil coun-
sellors had arisen to encourage him in contemptible yet
pernicious attacks on the welfare of the people he was
set to rule over. The king's party had reshaped itself,
and there was a Prince of Wales's party to add to the
complications. The American colonists had asserted
and had secured their independence ; our Indian empire
had been established by processes needing a special code
of ethics to excuse them, and initiating responsibilities
of which the burden still weighs upon us ; and the
French, casting off their king and the debased feudal
institutions of which he was the figure-head, had begun
to set Europe in a flame from which more than sparks
fell upon England. All these things, and many more,
caused no little disturbance in the domestic concerns of
the people. William Pitt, the shrewdest though not the
wisest statesman of the day, as superior to Fox as he
was inferior to Burke, tried first to quell the discontent
by scheming for parliamentary reform, then tided over
present difficulties by wonderful schemes of financial
reform, and had commenced to finish his career by
plunging the country into the most iniquitous, the
most stupendous, and the most injurious of all the
foreign wars it has ever been engaged in.

Were such things happening in these later times,
there would be no limit to the vehemence of newspaper
criticism on the proceedings. As it was, there was
much of that ; but newspapers, though far more
numerous and formidable than they had hitherto been,
were as yet only beginning to be powerful, and for the
prosecutions directed against them there were larger

1792. OCCASIONS FOR LIBEL 243

counterparts in the prosecutions against the public
agitators and political associations that then did much
of the work that the press has since assumed to itself.
In the Wilkite controversy with parliament and the
court the newspapers merely took a comparatively
trivial part, important though that was in itself ; and
the newspapers had next to nothing to do with other
contemporary agitations, such as the Spitalfields silk-
weavers' riots in 1765. The Bill of Eights Societies, the
Constitutional Societies, the Protestant Associations,
and so forth, that held their meetings and issued their
manifestoes in succeeding years, were reckoned more
dangerous and were more severely treated than the
newspapers, and such incidents as occurred in the Lord
George Gordon riots of 1780 certainly gave cause for
alarm. These and kindred movements grew in spite of
and in consequence of the attempts made to repress
them, and the press profited in the long run by many
measures in which, though they were not specially
aimed at it, it was involved, and through which it en-
dured many hardships at the time..

Li May 1792, while the Libel Bill was being passed
through the House of Lords, the government issued a
proclamation agamst wicked and seditious writings,
which provoked the scorn of Fox, Chai'les Grey — who
afterwards, as Earl Grey, had the credit of passing the
Reform Bill of 1832 — and others, but which was en-
thusiastically approved by the parliamentary majority.
It was partly if not expressly aimed against Thomas
Paine and his ' Rights of Man,' and Erskine was not
able to save Pame from an adverse verdict when he
was brought up for trial under the new Libel Act in
the following December. The Revolution Society, the
Society for Constitutional Information, the London
Corresponding Society, and other organisations, were

244 THE LIBEL ACT ch. Tin.

attacked in turn or together, and in 1793 the govern-
ment got, among others, John Frost put in the pillory
and imprisoned, and Winterbotham, Briellat, and Hud-
son fined and imprisoned, all for talking sedition ; while
in Scotland yet heavier sentences were passed on Muir,
Fyshe Palmer, and Skirving. Other and worse cases
followed, and the newspapers, though they gave but
little support to the extreme views of the rejjublican
party that under French influence was growing up,
were sufficiently interfered with. Lord Eldon boasted
in the House of Peers in 1795, that 'there had been
more prosecutions for hbel within the last two years
than there had been for twenty years before.' These,
however, with the exception of a few to be mentioned
hereafter, need not be particularised.

It was with a view of keeping down the press, as
well as of increasing the revenue, that Pitt had in 1789
raised the newspaper stamp duty to twopence, also
augmenting by sixpence the advertisement tax, which
now amounted to half-a-crown, and he adopted other
restraining measures. ' Whereas an usage prevails
amongst the hawkers of newspapers and other persons,
instead of sellmg the newspapers, to let out the same for
small sums to be read by different persons, whereby the
sale of newspapers is greatly obstructed,' it was enacted
that any one so offending should be liable to a penalty
of 5/. for each offence.^ Other laws were passed re-
quirmg heavy securities from newspaper printers, de-
fining the limits of size allowed for each stamp, and
so forth ; and in 1797 the stamp duty was raised to
threepence, with a discount of sixteen per cent, on
sums amounting to 10^. 'for every newspaper not sold
at more than sixpence,' that being offered as ' a reason-

' Act 29 George III., c. 50. A stationer in Bond Street was so fined
on July 2, 1790. Knight Hunt, vol. i. p. 281.

1789-1804. PITT'S NEWSPAPER POLICY 245

able compensation to such publishers of newspapers who
shall not advance the price of their papers beyond the
amount of duty imposed thereon by this Act.' Pub-
lishers were also required under a penalty of 20^. to
prmt on the newspapers the price charged for them,
and not to sell them at any higher price. ^ More im-
portant was a law passed in 1798 ' for preventing the
mischiefs arising from the priatiQg and pubUshing
newspapers and papers of a like nature by persons not
known, and for regulating the prmting and publication
of such papers in other respects,' which prescribed the
registration of the names and abodes of all newspaper
proprietors, printers and publishers, with description of
their printing-houses and the titles of their journals,
and which laid down heavy penalties for some newly
made offences — among others the sending abroad of
newspapers to any country ' not in amity with his
majesty,' and the copjdng from foreign papers of
matters tending to excite hatred and contempt of the
person of his majesty, and of the constitution and
government established in these kingdoms. ^ In 1804,
moreover, the newspaper duty was raised to threepence-
halfpenny, and the advertisement tax to three shillings
and sixpence. ^

Pitt's tampering with newspapers was not confined
to regulating their price and modes of distribution. He
knew as well as any before or after him how to influence
all editors who could be coaxed or threatened, and, as
there was a good deal of independence now in the better
sort of London journalists, he addressed himself all the
more zealously to the country people. At the close of
the eighteenth century there was no daily paper pubhshed
in the provinces, and the weekly journals were, as a

' Act 37 George III. o. 90. ' Act 38 George III. o. 78.

' Act 44 George III. c. 98.

246 THE LIBEL ACT ch. vnr.

rule, not ambitious. ' Their comments,' we are told,
' were confined to the events of their own town or dis-
trict, so sparingly administered, with such obvious dis-
trust of their own abilities and with such cautious
timidity, that they were absolutely of no account. The
London papers, a pot of paste and a pair of scissors,
supplied all the materials for the miscellaneous articles,
and the local intelligence was detailed m the most
meagre formularies. The provincial journalist of that
day was, in fact, not much above a mechanic, a mere
printer, and intellect had as little as possible to do with
the matter. When Mr. Pitt began to find a constant
instrument for the moculation of his views indispensable
to bear along with him the force and currency of popular
sentiment, a public ofiicer was instructed to open a com-
munication with the proprietors of journals of large
circulation, and the result was that to a vast majority of
them two or three London papers were sent gratui-
tously, certain articles of which were marked with red
ink, and the return made was the insertion of as many of
these as the space of the paper would allow. Thus was the
whole country agitated and du'ected by one mind as it
were ; and this fact accounts in no small degree for the
origin, propagation, and support of that public opinion
which enabled the mmister to pursue his plans with so
much certamty of insurmg general approbation.' ' The
clergy at this time,' it is added, ' were, it would appear,,
the principal provincial paper agents in this arrange-
ment, and exercised so much mfluence that a few years,
afterwards some of them made their exertions the ground
for a claim on clerical patronage, and in more than one
case obtained it from the government.' ^

Pitt's manipulation of the country newspapers, how-
ever, was only serviceable for a time. ' The success of
' New Monthly Magazine, vol. xlviii. p. 133.

1789-1804. PITT'S NEWSPAPER POLICY 247

these efforts on the part of the ministers,' according to
the same informant, ' roused the opposition into action,
and Jacobin, or republican papers, as they were then
called, were established, and by their original articles
materially improved the character of provincial journal-
ism,' There was like or yet more marked improvement
in metropolitan journalism in the years before and after
the close of the eighteenth century, in no small measure
due to the zealous action of the government in using all
the power that the Libel Act of 1792 afforded it for
attacking obnoxious newspapers, and in perverting, as
far as it could, all the benefits it was designed to con-
fer on the public.

Erskine was but one and the ablest of the many ad-
vocates of free speech and free writing whom these times
produced. Another was Sheridan, who was a leading
member of the Society of Friends of the People from
the time of its starting in 1792. ' Give me but the
liberty of the press,' Sheridan said in one of his vigor-
ous speeches, delivered in parliament in 1810, 'and I
will give the minister a venal House of Peers, I will
give him a corrupt and servile House of Commons, I
will give him the full swing of the patronage of ofl&ce,
I will give bim the whole host of ministerial influence,
I will give him all the power that place can confer upon
him to purchase submission and overawe resistance,
and yet, armed with the liberty of the press, I will go
forth to meet him undismayed, I wiU attack the mighty
fabric he has reared with that mightier engine, I will
shake down from its height corruption, and lay it be-
neath the ruins of the abuses it was meant to shelter.' ^

' Hansard's Parliamentary Debates (First Series), vol. xv. p. 341.

248

CHAPTER IX.

IN JAMES perry's TIME.
1779—1811.

Though there had been newspapers in England for
more than a hundred and fifty years before, some of
them very ably conducted and having considerable in-
fluence, they only began to assume their modern shape
near the end of the eighteenth century, the shape being
even then and for some time afterwards very different
from what it is now. A four-paged sheet, containing
less than is at present given in two pages of ' The
Times,' was as much as the law allowed to be issued
with a single stamp, and as much as the most enter-
prising editor could contrive to fill with interesting
matter, even though half the space might be taken up
with advertisements. Within this narrow compass,
however, there was room for a lively competition, and
it was vigorously carried on with the help of such
writers as Sheridan and Mackintosh, Coleridge and
Lamb, Southey and Moore, Campbell the poet and
Campbell the lawyer, and under editors and managers
as memorable as James Perry, John Walter, and Daniel
Stuart.

James Perry, though not the oldest, was the most
important of these three. He was born October 30,
1756, in Aberdeen, where his father, known as Pirie,
was a carpenter and builder. The boy had a good

176(3-1777, JAMES PERRY'S START IN LIFE 249

schooling, and was intended for the law, but he preferred
play-acting, and, joining a strolling company of which
Thomas Holcroft was a member, had about a year's ex-
perience before he was dismissed on the ground that his
Scotch accent rendered it impossible for him to make
his way on^ the stage. That was in 1774, and after
vainly seeking employment in Edinburgh he travelled to
Manchester, where he was for two years a clerk to a
cotton- spumer, and made diligent use of his evenings
in reading solid books and practising oratory in a de-
bating society. In 1777, when he was barely one-and-
twenty, he came to London, resolved to improve his
position, and he soon found that he had taken a wise
step. He had brought a letter of mtroduction to Richard-
son and Urquhart, the booksellers, who promised to find
some work for him, and after two or three misuccessful
visits to their shop, he called one day to find Urquhart
reading with much satisfaction ' The General Adver-
tiser,' the yomigest of the daily papers, which had been
started in 1776 under the editorship of William Cooke.
' I have heard of nothing to suit you,' said Urquhart,
' but if you could write such articles as this that I am
reading, I could give you work at once.' Young Perry
was able to say that the article was his own, being one
of several which he had amused hunself in writing, and
had dropped anonymously into the editor's box, and he
produced from liis pocket another article which he was
about to dispose of in the same way. ' That's the very
thing,' said the bookseller ; ' I am one of the principal
proprietors of this paper, and we want just such a writer
as you. We have a meeting to-night, and I shall pro-
pose you.' Next day Perry heard to his great delight
that he was to be employed on the staff of ' The General
Advertiser' at a salary of a guinea a week, with half-
a-guinea a week more for assisting on ' The London

250 IN JAMES PERRY'S TIME cb. ix.

Evening Post.' ' Such was the incident,' says the
chronicler, ' that threw Perry into the profession of a
journalist.' ^

' The London Evening Post ' was one of the old-
fashioned afternoon papers, appearing on Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays, which had survived from
the time of George II. John Almon, the sturdy
Wilkite, had been for a long time connected with it,
and he and other writers had often got it int&
trouble with the Tory government. Its style was now
somewhat out of date, however, and neither it nor ' The
General Advertiser ' was able to make much way, in
spite of the assistance that Perry gave to them for his-
guinea-and-a-half a week. Among the daily papers
' The Public Advertiser,' with its general news and its
racy letters of the Junius sort, under Henry Sampson
Woodfall, ' The Morning Chronicle,' in which William
Woodfall continued to distance all rivals by his parlia-
mentary reporting and dramatic criticism, and ' The
Morning Post,' in which Bate was now supporting the
Tories and pouring out his scurrilities, seemed to leave
little room for a new competitor, especially as both
' The Public Ledger ' and ' The Gazetteer ' satisfied a
good many readers who cared more for advertisements
than for news.

At one time, indeed, Perry very nearly made ' The
General Advertiser ' prosperous. During the first six
weeks of 1779, while Admirals Keppel and Palliser
were being tried by court-martial on account of the
quarrel that had arisen between them as a discreditable
sequel to their clumsy fighting with the French off
Ushant in the previous July, Perry was lodging at

'■ European Magazine, September 1818, p. ]88— an article either
written or inspired by Perry himself ; also Monthly Magazine, January
1822, pp. 566, 567.

1777-1783. HIS EAELY NEWSPAPER WORK 251

Portsmouth, and sent up eacli day an eight-column
report of the proceedings, and as no other paper thus
lavishly provided the public with the news which was
intensely interesting to it, the circulation of ' The
General Advertiser ' rose to ' several thousands a day.'
But this success was only temporary, and though
doubtless Perry did ample work for his pay, the pay
was hardly enough to make him very zealous. He was
as fond of speaking as of writmg, and, his Scottish
accent having been toned down, had some reputation as
an orator. He was a persistent attendant at the West-
mmster Forum, at the Lyceum, which had been lately
' fitted up for a superior style of oratory, with the view
of enabling such young gentlemen as were designed for
the senate and tlie bar to practise pubUc speaking before
a genteel auditory,' and at other places of the kind ;
and it is recorded that ' afterwards, when Mr. Pitt came
to be chancellor of the exchequer ' — that is, in 1782
— ' having had frequent opportunities of witnessing
Perry's talent in public speaking, and particularly in
reply, he caused a proposal to be made to him of coming-
into parliament, which would have probably led on to
high fortune.' ^

He was fortunate enough before long as a journalist.
In 1782 he projected, and he edited for the first year,
' The European Magazine.' He was also responsible
during some years for Debrett's ' Parhamentary De-
bates,'and in 1783 he left ' The General Advertiser '
to become editor of ' The Gazetteer,' at a salary of four
guineas a week. He took that post 'on the express
condition that he was to be left to the free exercise of
his political opinions, which were those asserted by
Mr. Fox.' ^ ' The Gazetteer ' had always been Whiggish,

' Buropean Magazine, September 1818, p. 189.
» Ibid., p. 190.

'252 IN JAMES PERRY'S TIME ch. ix.

or almost too revolutionary for the Whigs, but, for a
long time before Perry took charge of it, it had not
been of much pohtical account. For some time Sir
Eobert Walpole's chief instrument for influencing or
controlling public opinion through the press, it had
come to be known as ' the booksellers' paper,' held and
worked by the publishing fraternity, pretty much as at
a later date ' The Morning Advertiser ' was held and
worked by the licensed victuallers. It was a convenient
channel for trade advertisements, and furnished a fair
amount of general news, but made no pretence of
authority in politics. Perry, however, used his position
on it to effect an important reform in at least one depart-
ment of journalism. Till then, the only newspaper
that furnished lengthy parliamentary reports was ' The
Morning Chronicle,' in which, ever since 17fi9, William
Woodfall, himself attending the debates and charging
his wonderful memory with what he heard, had given
his version of everything important that had taken
place, sometimes fiUmg the whole paper with it, to the
exclusion even of advertisements. But with all his
skill Woodfall could not, when a long and momentous
debate had lasted for several hours, get his report, of
perhaps ten columns or more, written out and set in
type in time for publication in the morning, and occa-
sionally it happened that readers anxious to know at
breakfast-time what had occurred overnigfht in the
House of Commons had to wait till supper-time for
the information. Those who cared for such news put
up with the inconvenience so long as it could not be
helped, and much preferred this arrangement to the
plan followed by the other papers of either givmg no
more than a bald summary or postponing the report,
•even in that case meagre, till the following day, and
' The Morning Chronicle ' maintained its popularity and

1783. WILLIAM WOODFALL'S SUCCESSOR 253

steadily increased it during several years. Perry under-
took to break down the monopoly by tbe bold yet
simple expedient of employing a staff of reporters
instead of assigning the whole of the labour to one man.
This was a harder task than might be supposed, how-
ever, for it not only added greatly to the expense of
production, but also necessitated much scheming to
obtain admission for so many reporters to the parlia-
mentary galleries, both houses being still jealous of
their privilege of privacy, and offering no such facilities
for reporting as now exist. Perry's reform had to be
introduced by degrees, and, though ' The Gazetteer '
profited much by the changes he made, it was by no
means the most suitable paper for them, and the reform
was not perfected till Perry had again shifted his
quarters.

In the meanwhile two other new daily papers were
started. The earlier of them, ' The Morning Herald
and Daily Advertiser,' does not call for much notice.
Commenced on November 1, 1780, by Henry Bate, who
had now added Dudley to liis name, and in consequence
of his secession or expulsion from ' The Morning Post,'
the new paper was hardly better, in some respects worse,
than the old one. According to the announcement in
the first number, it was meant ' to be conducted upon
Liberal principles.' ' If " The Morning Herald " does
not owe its general complexion to those principles,'
wrote Bate Dudley, 'it cannot be entitled to public
support. The editor flatters liimself it will appear early
in the course of his arduous undertaking that he has
been attentive to every arrangement whence his readers
could derive information or entertainment. His power
not bemg equal to the suppression of obscene trash and
low invective, he trusts such articles will never stray
from their natural channel to defile a single column of

254 IN JAMES perry's TIME ch. ix.

" The Morning Herald." To whatever system of politics
he may individually be inclined, no prejudices arising
from thence shall induce him to sacrifice at any time
the sensible and dispassionate correspondence of either
party.' Contfiining a good deal of ' low invective,' if
not of 'obscene trash,' 'The Herald' was run on
similar lines to ' The Post,' except that a bitter rivalry
was kept up between them, and that while ' The Post '
now became more of a Tory organ than before, ' The
Herald' supported the Prince of Wales's party, with
which the aristocratic and place-hunting Whigs were
more in sympathy than the Tories. Bate Dudley was
just the sort of man to be a personal favourite of the
scheming and dissolute prince, and he had a zealous
ally in Sheridan, who wrote much for ' The Herald,'
and got credit for more than he wrote. Every smart
joke or stinging paragraph that Bate Dudley published,
though he was himself an adept in concocting siich,
was fathered upon Sheridan, and on that account was
credited with all the authority that could attach to any-
thing coming from the Carlton House circle.^

The other newspaper, especially notable as the fore-
runner of ' The Times,' but interesting on its own
account, was ' The Daily Universal Register,' the first
number of which aj)peared on January 1, 1785, and
which at once attracted general notice, though in the
way of ridicule prompted by jealousy rather than of
praise, and though all through its three years' life it
was an unprofitable speculation.

Its proprietor was John Walter, who, born in 1739,
had learnt the trade of bookselling and publishing as
apprentice to Robert Dodsley, and who carried on a
business of the same sort on his own account at Charinar

^ Jolm Bee, Life of Foote.

1739-1785. THE FIRST JOHN WALTER 255

Cross during forty years.-^ Before those forty years were
over, in 1783, or earlier, he began another business in
Printing House Square for the development of a new
printing process, known as logography, of which he
was patentee and ' part contriver,' the chief inventor
being Henry Johnson, a compositor employed by him.^
The process consisted in the use of metal castings of
complete words instead of separate letters, which its
devisers beheved would save time and trouble, and
insure greater accuracy as well as economy. It did not
answer Walter's expectations. He attributed the blame,
however, to others and not to himself. ' Embarked in a
business, into which I entered as a mere novice, consist-
ing of several departments,' he said, ' want of experi-
ence laid me open to many and gross impositions, and I
have been severely injured by the inattention, neglect,
and ignorance of others.' He admitted that numerous
errors crept into the sheets issued by him, ' but these
errors,' he said, ' were not owing to any defect in the art
of printing logographically, but to the readers and editors
whose duty it was to correct the proof sheets.' He ac-
knowledged, however, that the necessity of crowding
his founts with vast numbers of words that were rarely
used, and of keeping a sufficient store of those most in
demand, was embarrassing, and with much regret heat
length modified and ultimately abandoned the scheme.^
But dm'ing nearly a year and a half ' The Universal
Register,' along with several books and pamphlets, was

' Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, vol. vi. p. 443.

" An Introduction to Logography, by Henry Johnson (1783). Walter
had also before this time been an enterprising under-writer at Lloyd's,
and a great speculator in the coal trade. (See 27ie Case of Mr. John
Walter, in the British Museum Library, No. 1418, k, 33.) He was also
director of the Westminster branch of the Phoenix Fire Office for eighteen
years. (Nichols, vol. vi. p. 443.)

' Daily Universal Eegister, August 10, 11, and 12, 1786.

256 IN JAMES PEERY'S TIME ch. ix.

'printed logographically,' and the modified form of
logography was followed for some time longer.

The first number of the new paper opened with a
statement of plans and objects, which, though more
than usually pretentious, gave some interesting infor-
mation. ' It is very far from my intention,' wrote
Walter in a signed article, ' to detract from the acknow-
ledged merit of the daily papers now in existence. It is
sufiiicient that they please the class of readers whose ap-
probation their conductors are ambitious to deserve.
Nevertheless it is certain some of the best, some of the
most respectable, and some of the most useful members
of the commimity have frequently complained (and the
causes of their complaints still exist) that by radical
defects in the plans of the present established papers
they were deprived of many advantages which ought
naturally to result from daily publications. Of these
some build their fame on the length and accuracy of
parliamentary reports, which undoubtedly are given
with great ability and with a laudable zeal to please
those who can spare time to read ten or twelve columns
of debates. Others are principally attentive to the
politics of the day, and make it their study to give
satisfaction to the numerous class of politicians who,
blessed with easy circumstances, have nothing better to
do than to amuse themselves with watching the motions
of ministers both at home and abroad, and endeavour-
ing to find out the secret springs that set in motion the
great machine of government in every state and empire
in the world. There is one paper which in no degree
interferes with the pursuits of its contemporaries ; it
looks upon parliamentary debates as sacred mysteries
that cannot be submitted to vulgar eyes without pro-
fanation. Political investigations it apprehends to be
little short of treason, and therefore loyally abstains

1785. 'THE DAILY UNIVEBSAL EEGISTER' 257

from tliem. It deals almost solely in advertisements,
and consequently, thoiigli a very useful, it is by no
means an entertaining paper. Thus it would seem that
every newspaper published in London is calculated for
a particular set of readers only ; so that, if each set
were to change its favourite publication for another, the
commutation would produce disgust and dissatisfaction
to all. The politician would then find nothing to
amuse him but long accounts of petty squabbles about
trifles in parliament, or panegyrics on the men and
measures that he most disliked, or libels on those whom
he most revered. The person to whom parliamentary
debates afford unspeakable deUght would find himself
bored with political speculations about the measures
that the difi^erent courts in Europe might probably
adopt, or disgusted with whole pages of advertisements
in which he felt no concern ; whilst the plain shop-
keeper who wanted to find a convenient house for his
business, and the servant who purchased his paper in
hopes of seeing in it an advertisement directing where
he might find a place to suit him, would have their
labour for their pains in perusing publications filled
with senatorial debates, or pohtical essays and remarks
which would direct them to nothing less than the house
or place they wanted. A newspaper, conducted on the
true and natural principles of such a publication, ought
to be the Register of the Times, and faithful recorder
of every species of intelligence. It ought not to be
engrossed by any particular object, but, like a well-
covered table, it should contain something suited to
every palate.'

Such a perfect paper Walter proposed to supply,
selling it for twopence-halfpenny instead of the three-
pence charged for most of the other dailies, and pro-
mising that it should be published punctuallj'- at six

VOL. I. s

258 IN JAMBS PERRY'S TIME ch. ix.

o'clock every morning, and also that all advertisements
sent to him should invariably appear on the day after
they had been given in, even if, to find room for them,
it was found necessary to issue an extra half-sheet.
He intended the new journal, however, to be much
more than an advertising medium. His ambition was
to make it a complete chronicle of accurate and in-
teresting news, and a safe guide of public opinion.
' " The Register," in its politics,' he said, ' will be of no
party. Weakened as the country is by a long and
expensive war, and rent by intestine divisions, nothing
but the union of all parties can save it from destruction.
Moderate men, therefore, I trust, will countenance a
paper which has for one of its objects to cool the
animosities, stifle the resentments, manage the personal
honour and reconcile the principals of contending
parties, while the favours of those will be courted who
support principles by fair argument and think that a
good cause may be injured by personalities and low
invective. The correspondence of such as descend to
illiberal abuse, and attack the man rather than the
measure, wUl always be disregarded. " The Register,"
instead of dealing in scurrilities and abusing the great
men in power or the great men out of power, or instead
of deifying the one or the other, will reserve to itself a
right of censuring or applauding either as their conduct
may occasionally appear proper or improper. Nothing,'
it was added, ' shall ever find a place in " The Universal
Register" that can tend to wound the ear of delicacy or
corrupt the heart. Vice shall never be suffered therein
to wear the garb of virtue. To hold out the former in
alluring colours would strike at the very root of
morality, and concealing the native deformity of vice
might seduce unsuspecting innocence from the paths of
virtue.'

1785-1788. COMMENCEMENT OF 'THE TIMES.' 259

Starting thus ambitiously, and giviag ample evidence
of zeal and , honesty, if with too much arrogance,
Walter's paper fared ill under its original title, and,
attributing its disasters in part to the title, he at length
changed it. ' " The Universal Register," ' he said in his
amusiQgly pompous way, ' has been a name as injurious
to the logographic newspaper as Tristram was to Mr.
Shandy's son. But old Shandy forgot he might have
rectified by confirmation the mistake of the parson at
baptism — with the touch of a bishop have turned
Tristram to Trismegistus. " The Universal Register,"
from the day of its first appearance to the day of its
confirmation, has, like Tristram, suflfered from unusual
casualties, both laughable and serious, arising from
its name, which, on its introduction, was immediately
curtailed of its fair proportion by all who called for it,
the word " Universal " being universally omitted, and
the word " Register " being only retaiaed. " Boy, bring
me ' The Register ! ' " The waiter answers, " Sir, we
have not a library, but you may see it at the New
Exchange cofi'ee-house." " Then I'll see it there,"
answers the disappointed politician, and he goes to
the New Exchange and calls for " The Register," upon
which the waiter tells him he cannot have it as he is
not a subscriber, and presents him with " The Court
and City Register," the old " Annual Register," or the
" New Annual Register," or, if the cofi'ee-house be within
the purlieus of Covent Garden or the hundred of
Drury, slips into the politician's hand " Harris's Register
for Ladies." For these and other reasons the parents
of the " Universal Register " have added to its original
name that of " The Times," which, being a monosyllable,
bids defiance to corruptors and mutilators of the
language.'

These sentences are from the long announcement

s 2

260 IN JAMES PERRY'S TIME ch. ix.

that appeared in the first number of ' The Times and
Daily Universal Register,' on January 1, 1788, and
Walter promised, along with much else, that in the re-
named paper greater pains than ever should be taken
to give prompt and accurate information under separate
heads — ' the literary, political, commercial, philoso-
phical, critical, theatrical, fashionable, humorous, mtty,
&c., each of which are supplied with a competent share
of intellects for the pursuit of their several functions,
an endowment which is not in all times to be found
even in the heads of the state, the heads of the church,
the heads of the law, the heads of the navy, the heads
of the army, and, though last not least, the great heads
of the universities.' ' The political head of " The Times,"
it was added, ' like that of Janus, the Roman deity, is
double-faced ; with one countenance it will smile con-
tinually on the friends of Old England, and with the
other will frown incessantly on her enemies.' For the
change of title Walter claimed that he had contem-
porary warrant. ' The alteration we have made in our
head is not without precedents,' he said. ' " The World "
has parted with half its caput mortuum, and a moiety of
its brains. " The Herald " has cut off half its head, and
has lost its original humour. " The Post," it is true,
retains its whole head, and its old features, and as to
the other public prints they appear as having neither
heads nor tails.'

' The World ' there scornfully referred to had been
started just a year before, and, in no way remarkable,
was never very successful during its short lifetime,
though in the number that was published on the same
day as the first ' Times ' it boasted that in the course of
the previous twelve months its circulation had risen
from two thousand to between three and four thousand,
and, in consequence, bespoke the forbearance of its

1788-1789. 'THE TIMES' AND ITS RIVALS 261

readers on account of the lateness of publication in-
evitable when so large a quantity had to be printed off.
Probably if the truth were told, the sale of ' The World '
was at no time above a few hundred a day. A couple
of thousand was, in those times, a good paying circula-
tion which very few papers achieved.

' The Times,' in its early years, professed, as it has
often done since, to take no party side, but to be an in-
dependent and outspoken critic of all parties, while
giving a general support to the government of the day,
which for a long time, whether Pitt was m. office or
not, stoutly upheld the Tory principles of which he was
the champion, but which differed in some important
particulars from the Toryism of the court. The court
Toryism was coarsely represented by ' The Morning
Post,' and the principal Whig organ was ' The Morning
Chronicle.'

' The Morning Chronicle,' however, had been losing
ground under William Woodfall's now old-fashioned
management, and suffered especially from the opposi-
tion offered to it by Perry in ' The Gazetteer.' In
1789 a notable change was brought about. WoodfaU,
quarrelling with his co-proprietors, who wanted to
compete with Perry by following his tactics, left the
paper after twenty years' work on it, and started ' The
Diary,' which only had a short and unhappy life ; and
' The Chronicle ' was offered for sale. Perry borrowed
5001. from Eansome & Co., the bankers, and some more
money from Bellamy, the wiae merchant in Chandos
Street, who was also caterer and doorkeeper to the
House of Commons, and entered into partnership with
a Charterhouse schoolmaster named Cray, who had just
received a legacy of 500/. With that joint capital the
two bought ' The Chronicle,' partly at Fox's instigation,
the Duke of Norfolk making Perry a present of a house

262 IN JAMES PERRY'S TIME ch. ix.

in the Strand, which he converted into a new publish-
ing office.^ Thus revived, ' The Chronicle ' soon became
the most influential paper of that generation.

Perry was the first of the great line of modern
London editors, among whom — Stuart, of ' The Morning
Post,' soon becoming his rival — Black, of ' The Morning
Chronicle,' and Barnes and Delane, of ' The Times,' were
after his day especially famous. He had all the quali-
fications for success. ' Perhaps no man connected with
the English press,' it was said shortly after his death,
' ever enjoyed a tithe of the personal popularity of Perry.
He was in the first place a highlj'' honourable and brave
man. Confidence reposed in him was never abused.
He was the depositary of many most important secrets
of high personages. Generous in the extreme, he was
ever ready with his purse and his services. His manner
was manly, frank, and cordial ; and he was the best of
proprietors. He was hospitable, too ; and it was said
that his dinners were positively the best of any at that
time in the town. Though not profound, he was quick,
versatile, and showy. He wrote like a man of the
world, and took plain, common-sense views of the sub-
jects on which he treated ; and his style Was easy and
famUiar.' ^ Other contemporary report is to the same
efi^ect. ' He was a man of strong natural sense, some
cynical knowledge, and quick tact,' said one of his
fi-iends ; ' prudent, plausible, and with great heartiness
and warmth of feeling. This last quality was perhaps
of more use to him than any other in the sphere in
which he moved. His cordial voice and sanguine mode
of address made friends, whom his sincerity and grati-
tude ensured.' The same informant admits that he was

' Monthly Magazine, January 1822, p. 567; Cyrus Redding, I'ifly^
Years' Recollections, vol. i. p. 95.

- Quoted by Knight Hunt in The Fourth Estate, vol. ii. p. 106.

1789-1800. 'THE OHRONICLE ' UNDEE TERRY 263

' a little of a coxcomb,' and ' fond of the society of
lords,' being ' more vain than proud.' He sometimes
aflfected more scholarship than he possessed. After the
death of Porson, who was his brother-in-law, in 1808,
Perry, writing about him in ' The Chronicle,' stated that
'epithalamia were thrown into his coffin,' and, on its
being pointed out to him that this was not likely to have
happened, he inserted as an erratum next day, ' For
" epithalamia " read " epicedia." ' He was blamed for
writing too much in his own paper, and for having ' an
ambition to have it thought that every good thing in it,
unless it came from a lord or an acknowledged wit, was
his. own ; if he paid for the article itself, he thought
that he paid for the credit of it also.' ^

Perry was on good terms with his contributors,
however, and made ' The Morning Chronicle ' a more
prosperous journal than had ever before been known in
England. During the first few years he and his part-
ner Gray did most of the original writing, which, apart
from letters and other contributions from outsiders,
rarely exceeded two or three columns each day, though
this was a larger quantity than most of the other papers
contained. Gray provided the heavy articles. Perry
those of lighter sort ; and after Gray's death, which
happened after he had been part proprietor for only a
few years, other writers were employed, among them
James Mackintosh and Sheridan, and in later times
Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore, who contributed
verse, and John Campbell, then a young barrister, who
was the theatrical critic. ^ ' The Exile of Erin,' ' Ye
Mariners of England,' and several other poems appeared
in ' The Chronicle ' during 1800, on Christmas Day in
which year Thomas Campbell wrote to his agent in

' Edinburgh Review, May 1823, pp. 361, 362.

' Monthly Magazine, January 1822 : Cyrus Redding, vol. i. p. 95.

264 m JAMES PERRY'S TIME ch. ix.

London : ' I have just finislied. my fourteentli trans-
mission to P. I have resolved to send but twenty for a
year's allowance. I think you may demand at least
forty guineas for them all. The remaining six shall be
sent within three weeks. Two guineas apiece is no
extraordinary demand ; but leave it to himself. More
than twenty pieces in a year would make my name
too hackneyed.' ^ When Campbell settled in London
he attempted to write prose as well as verse for ' The
Chronicle,' but with less success. ' Experience must
have been wanting,' said one of his friends and fellow-
contributors. ' A knowledge of the political topics of
the time, and the art of rapid composition, these essen-
tials in writing for the masses, were not the qualities
with which Campbell was endowed. He must have been
an utter stranger to the tact which, in the newspaper
contests of that time, when politics ran high, must have
been more than ever demanded. He had none of that
positive acquaintance with men and things connected
with poHtical affairs which can be obtained at the seat
of government alone. The poet was unsuccessful, though
Perry retained him. for some time to aid in getting up
the poet's corner of the paper.' ^ Perry had another
and a more famous contributor. In September 1793,
when Coleridge, at the age of nineteen, ran up from
Cambridge to London, and was on the point of enlist-
ing as a soldier, he made his first appearance as a
newspaper writer. ' He sent a poem of a few lines to
Perry, soliciting a loan of a guinea for a distressed
author,' we are told. ' Perry, who was generous with
his money, sent it ; and Coleridge often mentioned this,
when " The Morning Chronicle " was alluded to, with ex-
pressions of a deep gratitude proportioned to the severe

' Beattie, Life and Correspondence of Tliomas Campbell, vol. i. p. 329.
' Cyrus Redding in New Monthly Magazine, vol. Ixxvii. p. 404.

1789-1800. 'THE CHRONICLE' UNDER PERRY 265

distress wliich that small sum at the moment relieved.' ^
In later years Coleridge wrote some other poems for
" The Morning Chronicle,' and his friend Charles Lamb
was an occasional writer of prose for it. ^

Perry owed much to his contributors, but more to
his own tact and enter[)rise. One of his purposes in
acquiring ' The Chronicle ' was to bring to as much per-
fection as he could the system of parliamentary report-
ing on which his heart was set, and for which he had
already won much credit. In this he got other help,
besides a loan of money, from Bellamy the wine mer-
chant. Bellamy being also doorkeeper of the House
of Commons, he could let almost anyone he chose pass
in and out of the buHding, and send messages and
parcels to and fro with ease, fie was thus of immense
service to Perry in enabling his reporters to make and
despatch their notes of debates without unnecessary
trouble or loss of time. ^ And Perry's zeal was shown
in another way. Before the war between England and
France was begun in 1793, he went to France and
stayed there more than a year in order that he might
send home early and correct accounts of the progress of
the great revolution. * He was thus one of the pioneers
■of the special war correspondence which has been such
an important feature of modern journalism.

No stronger proof of the skUl with which Perry
managed ' The Morning Chronicle ' could, apart from
its commercial success, be found than in the fact that
at a time when nearly every other newspaper was the
frequent object of libel prosecutions by the crown, this
outspoken organ of the Whigs in opposition was scarcely

' Daniel Stuart in Gentleman's Magazine, August 1838, p. 124.
^ Essays ofElia, ' Newspapers Thirty Years Ago.'
' Monthly Magazine, January 1822, p. 567.
^ Knight Hunt, vol. ii. p. 104.

266 IN JAMES perry's time ch. tx.

interfered with. Thrice only during his long career was-
Perry br'ought up for trial. In the first case he was
defended by Erskine ; in the second and third he de-
fended himself ; and in all these cases verdicts of not
guilty were obtained.^ He was less fortunate in 1798..
' The Morning Chronicle ' of March 19 in that year con-
tained a paragraph in which some discerned sympathy
with the French, with whom England was then at war.
On the 21st the Earl of Minto called attention to it in
the House of Peers, and he was followed by Lord
Sydney, who spoke of ' The Chronicle ' as ' a scandalous-
paper, which he would not admit into his home.' Perry
was not without defenders. Lord Derby maintained
that he had ' never employed his pen or his paper tO'
undermine the civil or religious establishments of the
country,' and that 'The Chronicle' was 'distinguished
for its regard to the decencies of private life, and for its
disdain of all scandal on individuals, and of those licen-
tious personalities by which the peace of families was
destroyed ' ; and the Duke of Bedford, the Marquis of
Lansdowne, and the Duke of Norfolk spoke to the same
effect. Lord Minto's motion that Perry, and with him
Lambert, the printer of ' The Chronicle,' should be im-
prisoned for three months and fined 50Z., was, however,
carried by sixty-nine votes to eleven. ^

John Walter, though he generally supported the
government, while Perry opposed it, was much more
unfortunate. ' The Times ' was less than two years old,
when, in the autumn of 1789, a paragraph censuring
the Duke of York appeared in it. For this Walter was-
prosecuted in December, sentenced to pay a fine of 501.,.
to stand in the pillory for an hour, to be imprisoned for
a year, and after that to give security for his good be-

^ Knight Hunt, vol. ii. pp. 37, 105.
" Parliamentary History, vol. xxxiii.

1789-1791. JOHN WALTER IN PRISON 267

havioiir during seven years. He was excused from the
pillory, but whUe lie was in Newgate gaol, and manag-
ing ' The Times ' as best he could from there, two other
libels appeared, one blaming the Prince of Wales, and
again the Duke of York, and the other charging the
Duke of Clarence with having absented himself from
his ship without leave of the authorities ; and for these
fi'esh offences Walter was in November sentenced to an-
other year's imprisonment, and to pay fines amounting
to 200?.-^ He had friends at court, however, and,
apparently at the intercession of Sir Thomas Erskiae,
he was i-eleased in March 1791, after he had been in
confinement for sixteen months. ^

Walter boldly vied with Perry in newspaper enter-
prise, one of his arrangements being to keep a light
cutter running backwards and forwards across the

' BJiight Hunt, vol. ii. p. 164.

^ ' Little did I ever expect ever to be an inliabitant of this vile re-
ceptacle, or that auy political sin could doom me to so severe a sentence,'
Walter wrote to James Bland Burgas from Newgate in February 1790. ' I
am the more astonished when I daily read in the opposition prints the
most opprobrious libels and treasonable paragraphs against those who gave
birth to my prosecutors, and yet without notice. . . . Newgate was un-
doubtedly a receptacle for felons, though it is the fashion of the court, at
present, to extend it to misdemeanours, by which means we are subject
to more solitary confinement than felons who are guilty of murder and
the greatest outcasts of society. Though I am confined in what is called
the state side and, by paying for a room, have one to myself, yet the
same entrance leads likewise to the felons, and whenever any are brought
into the gaol the outward door is shut, and they are fettered in the com-
mon passage, so that it discourages my friends from access ; and such is
the audacity of some of the turnkeys that they will frequently keep them
and those who bring my provisions for an hour at the door, even when
they are lolling in their chair in an adjoining room ; and what is still
worse, at eight o'clock I am locked up every evening in common with the
felons, after which time no soul is permitted to have a person with him.
.... Were a person ever so ill, they might call their hearts out before
any assistance could be procured. Judge then what a man must feel
who has till lately enjoyed even the luxuries of life.' — Bland-Burges
Papers, p. 157. In this letter Walter says, ' I was one of the jury who
tried Junius's "letter to the king" twenty years since.'

268 IN JAMES PERRY'S TIME ca. ix.

Channel during the war with France, in order surrep-
titiously to obtain from the local fishermen copies of the
French papers, which were contraband in England, and
in this way to provide interesting information for his
readers.^ He raised ' The Times ' to the second ranlc
among the journals of the day ; but it was reserved
for his son, the second John Walter, who took charge of
the paper in ] 803, to make it both more influential and
more prosperous than ' The Morning Chronicle.' He died
on November 16, 1812. ' He was a man,' it was said
■of him, ' of the strictest honour, both in professional
and private life, and his unbounded benevolence was
only exceeded by his urbanity and uncommon flow of
spirits.'^

Perry, who was his junior by seventeen years, lived
on till December 6, 1821, continuing the general
management of ' The Chronicle' till the last, but some
years before this he had left much of the editing to
others, his first assistant after Grray's death being
Robert Spankie, who was afterwards attorney-general
of Bengal, and the next John Black. He interested
himself in much besides the newspaper, losing part of
his earnings in mmiufacturing speculations ; but he
could afi'ord to do this. ' The Chronicle,' after his death,
was sold for 42,000^.^

Ten years younger than Perry, and his survivor by
a quarter of a century, though he got out of harness
sooner, was the last of the three great editors of the
period. Daniel Stuart was another of the Scotchmen
who sought and found fortune in London. He claimed
some sort of kinship with the royal family -whose name
he bore, and was proud of the prowess of his ancestors,
the Stuarts of Loch Rannoch in Perthshire, in fighting

' Cyrua Bedding, vol. ii. p. 107. ^ Nichols, vol. vi. p. 443.

= Kniglit Hunt, vol. ii. pp. 104, 112.

1788-1800. DANIEL STUART AND OTHERS 269'

against the houses of Orange and Hanover in 1715 and
1745. He was himself, however, a loyal subject of
King George III., though somewhat wavering between
Whig and Tory principles. He was born in Edin-
burgh on November 16, 1766, and in 1778 he was
sent to London, where his elder brothers, Charles and
Peter, were already learning the printmg trade. Charles
appears to have left it, while he was stUl a young man,
for verse- writing and play- writing. His poems were in
the style of Burns, 'though,' as his brother admitted,
' of much inferior merit,' and several of .his short come-
dies or farces were produced at the theatres towards
the close of the eighteenth centmy. But Peter set up
in business as a general printer, and Daniel, as soon as
his schoolmg was over, became his assistant or partner.^'
These two lived together, and with them lived their
sister Catherine, who, we are told, was ' less remark-
able for her personal attractions than for a rich fund
of good sense which, under gentle and unpretending
manners, was dii'ected by a strong mind and an affec-
tionate heart.' This young lady, whose mind and
heart seem to have been very helpful to her brother, as-
well as to others, happened to be a great friend of a
Mrs. Fraser, with whom young James Mackintosh
came in 1788 to lodge, while — having taken his doctor-
ship of medicine in Edinburgh — he studied law at Lin-
coln's Inn. The young people soon fell in love with one
another, and in February 1789, neither being yet four-
and-twenty, were secretly married, thereby giving great
offence to both their families, though Daniel Stuart, at.
any rate, was soon, and for long afterwards, on good
terms with his amiable sister and his talented brother-
in-law.^

^ Gentleman's Magazine, September 1847, p. 322.

' R. J. Mackintosh, Life of Sir James Mackintosh, vol. i. p. 50.

270 IN JAMES PEERT'S TIME ch. ii.

The friendsliip was serviceable to both of tbe yotmg
men, especially as Mackintosh, finding it necessary to
earn money for the support of his wife, was a busy
journalist for some years. His first employment was
on ' The Oracle,' a daily paper which had just been
started by John BeU, ui the hope of competing with
' The Times ' and its rivals. Mackintosh was employed
to write up the foreign news for ' The Oracle,' and the
first arrangement was that his work should be paid for
according to the quantity. In one week, however, to
BeU's horror, he produced matter enough to be worth
ten guineas. ' No paper can stand this ! ' exclaimed
Bell, and a fresh contract was .made, in accordance with
which Mackintosh wrote less and received a regular
salary. He also, as has been noted, contributed occa-
sional articles to ' The Morning Chronicle.' ^

In the meanwhile the Stuart brothers were drifting
into newspaper speculation. Though they do not seem to
have been otherwise responsible for it at this date, they
undertook, in 1788, the printing of ' The Morning Post,'
which, having been in very low water for some time,
made a fresh start, with new type and promise of other
improvements. 'Newspapers,' wrote the editor,, who-
ever he may have been, in terms more applicable to ' The
Post' than to any other journal, 'have long enough
estranged themselves in a manner totally from the
elegancies of literature, and dealt only in malice, or at
least in the prattle of the day. On this head, however,
newspapers are not much more to blame than their
patrons, the public. But it is a blame out of which " The
Morning Post" is resolved to struggle, and for that end
plans are now settling with a number of literary gentle-
men, and particularly with one whose name would do
our paper the highest honour were we at liberty to an-

' Mackintosh, vol. i. pp. 53, 54.

1788-1795. TROUBLES OP 'THE MORNING POST' 271

nounce it. The period is not far distant when " The
Morning Post " will be as necessarily sought after, not
only for the purpose of learning the fashionable intelli-
gence, and the best authenticated accounts of foreign
and domestic occurrences which it now possesses, but
that the lovers of literature and taste may thoroughly
peruse it, and store it up for future information and
many a future reading.'^ Those were vain yet pro-
phetic words. The ' number of hterary gentlemen,' and
the one particularly honourable among them, were not
procured by Tattersall, the proprietor at that time,
who knew more about horses and sport than about the
' elegancies of literature,' and Dr. Wolcott, as Peter
Pindar, continued to be the chief writer on ' The Post,'
which, besides his clever verses, gave much information
about affairs of the prize-ring and kindred amusements.
At length, in July 1 792, Tattersall had to pay 4,000^.
damages for an especially gross Ubel on Lady Elizabeth
Lambert,^ and, though he was not ruiaed, ' The Post '
suffered considerably. It derived a large revenue from
advertisements of carriages and horses, but in 1795 its
average daily circulation was only 350, and Tattersall was
glad to sell it to Daniel Stuart, and some friends from
whom Stuart soon afterwards bought their shares, for
600Z., that price including the house in Catherine Street,
Strand, and all the plant, as well as the copyright.^

Daniel Stuart had been printing ' The Morning Post'
during seven years before that, his brother Peter having
resigned the work to him early in 1788 in order to start
the first London evening paper, ' The Star.' Hitherto,
throughout more than half a century, there had been
several evening papers, issued thrice a week ; but these

^ Morning Post, January 1, 1788.

' Campbell, Lives of the CIdef Justices, vol. iii. p. 51.

' Gentleman's Magazine, July 1838, p. 24.

272 m JAMES perry's time ch. tx.

had depended for their success more on essays and other
miscellaneous matter than on fresh and original news,
and Peter Stuart only ventured on his experiment, as
Daniel said, ''in consequence of the increased facilities
of communication by Palmer's mail-coach plan just
started.' ^ It being now possible for evening newspapers
to be delivered on the same day, and more quickly than
the post could carry them, Peter Stuart shrewdly set a
fashion in which he soon had many imitators ; and
'The Star' was carried on with some profit till 1831,
when it was swallowed up by ' The Albion.' Its first
editor was ' Mr. Macdonald, a Scotch poet, author of
" Vimonda," a tragedy, an accomplished literary gentle-
man, with a large family, in distressed circumstances,'
as we are told by Daniel, who also reports that his
brother invited Burns to come up to town and supply
' communications to the paper ' at a salary of a guinea
a week, ' qxiite as large as his excise office emoluments.'
' I forget the particulars,' he adds, ' but I remember my
brother showing Burns's letters, and boasting of the
correspondence with so great a genius.'^

Daniel Stuart was a more skUful newspaper manager
than his elder brother, and also a man of more general
ability and wider interests. When in 1792 the Society
of Friends of the People was started, in order to carry
on an orderly agitation against the tyrannical policy of
Pitt and the Tories, with Erskine, Sheridan, Grey,
Whitbread, Tierney, Lauderdale, and other influential
Whigs among its members. Mackintosh was its honorary
secretary, and Daniel Stuart did much of the work for
him.^ This brought the young printer into intimate
relations with nearly all the leading members of the
opposition, and, adopting their opinions in the mam, he

' Oentleman's Magazine, July 1838, p. 24. ^ Ibid.

' Ibid., September 1847, p. 323.

] 795-1798. 'THE POST' UNDER DANIEL STUART 273

became, not exactly a Whig, but more liberal and cos-
mopolitan than any orthodox Whigs could be. There-
fore, in 1795, when Mackintosh's society was dissolved,
and when Daniel Stuart became proprietor and editor
of ' The Morning Post,' he not only revolutionised the
general tone of the paper, but, claiming to be indepen-
dent of party, made it an exponent of bolder and more
revolutionary views m politics than found utterance in
' The Morning Chronicle ' or any of the other daily
papers. His brother-in-law, Mackintosh, became one of
his contributors, and among other contributors, before
long, were Coleridge, Lamb, Southey, and Wordsworth.
During a few years, indeed, ' The Post ' had a staff of
writers so brilliant and interesting that their connection
with it deserves to be traced with some detail in another
chapter. At present it is enough to note the fact that
Daniel Stuart's skilful editing made his paper during a
few years more successful than any of its rivals.

The circulation of ' The Morning Post,' which was
only 350 when Stuart bought it iu 1795, was over
2,000 in 1798, being partly raised to that figure by his
buying up of two other daily papers, the old ' Gazetteer '
and a short-lived rival j ' The Telegraph,' with a sale of
about 700 between them, which he absorbed in ' The
Post ' ; and it exceeded 4,500 in 1803, when the highest
average of any other paper was only about SjOOO.'- That
total was reached by ' The Morniag Chronicle ' alone.
'" The Morning Herald" and " The Times," then leading
papers,' said Stuart, ' were neglected, and " The Morn-
ing Post," by vigilance and activity, rose rapidly. Ad-
vertisements flowed in beyond bounds. I encouraged
the miscellaneous advertisements m the front page,,
preferring them to any others, upon the rule that
the more numerous the customers the more independent

' OentlemaWs Magazine, September 1847, p. 323.
VOL. I. T

274 IN JAMES PEREY'S TIME ch. ix.

and permanent the custom. Besides, numerous and
various advertisements interest numerous and various
readers, looking out for employment, servants, sales,
purchases, &c. &c. Advertisements act and react.
They attract readers and promote circulation, and cir-
culation attracts advertisements.' ^

Four years after he had begun to make ' The Morning
Post ' a profitable and powerful newspaper, Daniel Stuart
entered on another successful speculation, emulating and
improving upon his brother Peter's experience on ' The
Star,' as a rival to which ' The Courier,' had lately been
issued as an evening paper. ' The Courier,' started by
John Parry, had been conducted with some spirit, and
had what was for those times a respectable circulation,
but Parry seems to have been ruined by a particularly
outrageous libel prosecution instituted by the govern-
ment in May 1799. In the previous November he had
published this paragraph : ' The emperor of Russia is
rendering himself obnoxious to his subjects by various
acts of tyranny, and ridiculous in the eyes of Europe
by his inconsistency. He has now passed an edict pro-
hibiting the importation of timber, deal, &c. In conse-
quence of this ill-timed law upwards of one hundred
sail of vessels are likely to return to this kingdom
without freights.' On the ground that this was a gross
insult to a friendly power and likely to cause trouble
between England and Russia, the attorney -general,
afterwards Lord Eldon, persuaded the Court of King's
Bench to fine Parry 100/. and to send him to prison
for six months, both the printer and publisher being
also imprisoned for a month.^ Parry discreetly sold
' The Courier,' and Daniel Stuart discreetly bought it.
Under his direction, though it was involved in at least

' Gentleman^s Magazine, July 1838, p. 25.

^ Lord Campbell, Lives oftlie Chief Jwtices, vol. iii. p. 50.

1799-1811. 'THE COURIER' AND 'THE POST' 275

one libel case only a few months after lie took charge of
it, the circulation steadily advanced from 1,500 in 1796
to 7,000 in 1811, and after that to 8,000 or more, the
number — unparalleled for that time — being 10,000 in
the memorable fortnight before the battle of "Waterloo.-^

Before that date, however, Daniel Stuart had
practically retired from business. Finding that his
health was breakiag down under the strain of two daily
papers, he sold ' The Morning Post' iii 1803 ; and in
the management of ' The Courier ' he had a partner,
Peter Street, who attended to the printing and publish-
ing from the first, and who also undertook the editor-
ship before 1811. Street was either a Tory or, as his
enemies called him, 'an anjrthingarian,'^ and in his
hands ' The Courier ' was during many years the chief
ministerial organ ia the London press, ' The Morning
Chronicle ' being its principal opponent.

Stuart, with some reason, prided himself not only
on the very successful way in which his two papers
were managed, but also on the iafluence he was able to
exert through them on the politics of the day, and on
the indejDendence with which he did this. ' I sup-
ported Addington against Bonaparte during the peace
of Amiens with all my power,' he said ; ' and in the
summer of 1803 Mr. Estcourt came to me with a
message of thanks from the prime minister, Mr.
Addington, offering me anything I wished. I declnied
the offer,' ^ A few years afterwards he wrote an article
in ' The Courier ' finding fault with the Duke of York,
and, as was usual, two or three early copies of the paper
were sent off to the government offices. ' About four
-o'clock,' according to his report, ' up came an alarming

' Oenileman's Magazine, May 1838, p. 490.

' Cyrus Redding, vol. i. p. 94.

' Gentleman's Magazine, June 1838, p. 578.

I 2

276 IN JAMES perry's time cet. n.

message from tlie treasury, that, if that paragraph
went forth, the ministrj'- would be ruined. We can-
celled 3,500 sheets and expunged it, and I made Street
promise to accept of no pecuniary remuneration for so
considerable a loss, that it might not be said we had
done this to extort money. The paper at that time
was supposed to be so much under ministerial du-ection
that certain high personages would not have believed
the paragraph was not sent designedly by mmisters to
the paper for a crooked purpose.' ^

Here is another of Stuart's interesting anecdotes,
which throw light on much besides the important, posi-
tion that newspapers, under such men as Stuart and
Perry, were now attaining in the political world.
'Early in 1811,' he tells us, 'Coleridge had some
private business with me. I called on him at Charles
Lamb's chambers in the Temple, and we adjourned to
a tavern, where we talked over the news of the day.
There was at that time a dispute in parliament about
the conditions on which the Prince of Wales should
accept the regency, and it had been authoritatively,
ostentatiously, gravely boasted that the royal brothers
had met, and had all agreed it should be a regency
without restrictions. Coleridge pointed out that this
was a most unconstitutional interference, that, the con-
stitution knew nothing of an assembly of princes to
overawe the legislature. I wrote an article to this
effect in " The Courier," referred to the Germanic con-
stitution, and censured the attempt to establish " a
college of princes " in England. The Duke of Sussex
took this up in high dudgeon, and made a long, angry
speech in the House of Lords on the subject. He
thought, evidently, that the article was a ministerial
manifesto from the cabinet in Downing Street, witbou^

' Oentleman's Magazine, August 1838, p. 127.

1811. ' THE COURIER ' AND THE PRINCE OF WALES 277

knowing that it was only a tavern concoction, of which,
ministers knew nothing.' ^

To the spring of 1811 must also be referred yet
another of Stuart's amusing reminiscences. ' At this
time,' he says, ' a struggle was going on whether the
regent should be a Whig or a Tory, and important
letters were passing between his royal highness and
Mr. Perceval. At midnight George Spurrett, the
porter, who slept in ■' The Courier " ofl&ce, was knocked
up ; a splendid carriage and splendid liveries at the
door ; a portly elegant man, elegantty dressed, wrapped
up in a cloak, presented himself and inquired for Mr.
Stuart, for, as 1 was abused in the newspapers as the
conductor of " The Courier," the merit of which belonged
wholly to Mr. Street, I was the person inquired for by
strangers. George said Mr. Stuart lived out of town,
but Mr. Street, the editor, resided on the Adelphi
Terrace. A packet was delivered to George, who was
enjoined to give it speedily to Mr. Street, as it was of
great importance. This was a copy of the correspon-
dence between the Prince of Wales and Mr. Perceval.
To be sure of its being genume Mr. Street went
immediately to Mr. Perceval to inquire. On seeing
it, Mr. Perceval started back and exclaimed, " This
is done to ruua me with the prince! If it appears
in ' The Courier,' nothing will persuade him I did
not publish it as an appeal to the public against
him. It must not be published ! " " No ? " said
Mr. Street. " It is a very good article for the paper."
Mr. Perceval explained and entreated ; Mr. Street
Still remarking, "It is a very good article for the
paper ; and what will partner Stuart say if he hears of
my suppressing it ? " " Well," said Mr. Perceval, who
held it fast, " some news shall be sent to you as an

' Gentleman's Magazine, August 1838, p. 128.

278 IN JAMES perry's time ch. ix.

equivalent." Accordingly, a copy of the official de-
spatch of the taking of the island of Bandy, in the East
Indies, was sent the same day, and appeared in " The
Courier " before it appeared in " The London Gazette."
I knew nothing of this till the evening, when I dined
with Street at Kilburn, when we had a hearty laugh at
these occurrences.' ^

Street was sole editor of ' The Courier ' for about
twelve years, and, we are told, ' with Shakespeare and
Burke ever ready at his finger-ends for apt quotations,
conducted it with great spirit, much in the confidence of
the government, and led as sumptuous and gay a life as
his partner's was the opposite — decorous and economic' ^
He died a poor man not very long after his connection
with Stuart had been ended, in 1822, when they had
dissolved partnership and sold ' The Courier.' Stuart
lived on till August 25, 1846, having spent nearly half
of his eighty years in quiet enjoyment of the wealth
he had honestly acquired, and of the respect he won
from all. He was a man of varied and refined tastes,
fortunate in nearly everything he took in hand. Picture-
collecting was a great hobby vnth him, and one of his
store was Wilkie's ' Blmd Fiddler,' which the artist had
been glad to sell him for five guineas in 1806.^ Though
a shrewd Scotchman, he was not ungenerous. Cole-
ridge spoke of him in 1809 as 'a man of the most con-
summate knowledge of the world, managed by a
thorough, strong and sound judgment, and rendered
innocuous by a good heart ' ; and ' a most wise, dis-
interested, kind, and constant friend.' * ' He ever ap-
peared to us one of the finest tempered of editors,' said

' Gentleman's Magazine, August 1838, p. 128.
^ Jerdan, Autobiography, vol. i. p. 92.
' Gentleman's Magazine, December 184T, p. 661.
* Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 401. (Biographical
Supplement.)

1799-1811. RIVALS OF 'THE MORNING CHRONICLE' 279

Charles Lamb ; ' Perry, of " The Morning Chronicle," was
equally pleasant, witha dash — no slight one either — of the
courtier. Stuart was frank, plain, and English all over.' ^

Both in ' The Morning Post ' and in ' The Courier '
Stuart and his associates had done much to help on
journalistic enterprise. More influential, however, be-
cause more steady and persistent in their work, were
some other newspaper men, and especially the pro-
prietors of ' The Morning Chronicle ' and ' The Times ' ;
and several of the fresh papers that were started in
these years, though only a few of them were success-
ful, had important bearings on the general progress.

About ' The Morning Chronicle ' under Perry's long
rule there is little to be added to what has already been
said. Loyally if not slavishly supporting Fox, whether
he was in or out of office, so long as he lived, and as far
as possible maintaining after his death the views held by
him, it was all along the accepted organ of the orthodox
Whigs, opposing itself with equal zeal to Toryism
on the one hand and to the new Radicalism that was
springing up and shooting out somewhat unhealthily on
the other. During a few years it was outstripped in
popularity by ' The Morning Post,' and it had to face the
jformidable rivalry of ' The Times ' and such rivalry from
the other daily papers as, though it may not have been
very formidable, was not to be despised. But Perry
knew how to put good writing into his paper, and how
to make a good show of general news, and to secure
nearly as many advertisements as he could make room
for. Satisfying his readers, he had himself ample
ground for being satisfied with his achievements.

' The Times ' had a more eventful history, and though
the second John Walter who succeeded his father in
1803 had many years of struggling before he could raise

* Essays of Elia, ' Newspapers Thirty Years Ago.'

280 IN JAMES PERRY'S TIME ch. tx.

the paper to the pre-eminence it so long enjoyed, his
struggles were interesting and serviceable. This second
Walter, born in 1784, was not yet nineteen when he be-
came, as he said, 'joint proprietor and exclusive manager '
of ' The Times,' and, abandoning some of his father's
crotchets, imitated all his father's enthusiasm in the
business he took in hand. His policy was to make
the paper a good property by methods that were not
undignified, without too rigid adherence to the views
of either of the political parties then contending for the
management of the nation's affairs. ' On his commenc-
ing the business,' according to his own account, ' he gave
his conscientious and disinterested support to the exist-
ing administration, that of Lord Sidmouth. The paper
continued that support of the men in power, but with-
out suffering them to repay its partiality by contribu-
tions calculated to produce any reduction whatsoever in
the expense of managing the concern ; because by such
admission the editor was conscious he should have
sacrificed the right of condemning any act which he
might esteem detrimental to the public welfare.' ^ Lord
Sidmouth, better known as Addington, was replaced
by Pitt early in 1804, and as, except during the short
time of Lord Grenville's administration, between
February 1806 and March 1807, the Tories were in
office till 1827, albeit with various shades of Toryism,
Walter had no great difficulty in giving ' disinterested
support to the men in power,' without much straining
or variation of the ' independent spirit' for which he
took credit. He did, however, show enough indepen-
dence to bring on himself and his house more than one
piece of persecution.

His father had been printer to the Customs since
1786, and this profitable addition to his business had

' Times, February 11, 1810.

1803-1811. THE SECOND JOHN WALTER 281

come to be regarded as a permanency when, in 1804,
Lord Melville being first lord of tbe admiralty, ' The
Times ' boldly attacked him on account of the mal-
practices for which, soon afterwards, he was impeached.
' The editor,' said Walter, ' knew the disposition of the
man whose conduct he found himself obliged to con-
demn. Yet he never refrained for a moment on that
account from speaking of the Catamanan expedition as it
merited, or from bestowing on the practices disclosed in
" the tenth report " the terms of reprobation with which
they were greeted by the general sense of the country.
The result was as he apprehended. Without the
allegation of a single complaint, his family was deprived
of the business, which had so long been dischai'ged by
it, of printing for the Customs, a business which was
performed by contract, and which he will venture to
say, was executed with an economy and a precision that
have not since been exceeded. The government adver-
tisements were at the same time withdrawn.' ^

More important to the community than the quarrel
which ensued between the Walters and the government
on that subject was another quarrel in which they were
engaged. Fi'om the first the conductors of ' The
Times ' took great and praiseworthy pains to provide
the English public with late and authentic foreign
news. With that object, as has been already noted,
they employed cutters of their own to obtain from the
French coast newspapers containing fuller accounts of
the enemy's proceedings than were allowed to appear
in EngUsh oflicial organs, and they made all the use
they could of the regular packet boats. ' The editor's
packages from abroad,' however, Walter complained,
' were always stopped by the government at the out-
ports, while those for the ministerial journals were

' Times, February 11, 1810.

282 IN JAMES perry's TIME CH. ix.

allowed to pass. The foreign captains were always
asked by a government officer at Gravesend if they had
papers for " The Times." These, when acknowledged,
were as regularly stopped. The Gravesend officer, on
being spoken to on the subject, replied that he would
transmit to the editor his papers with the same punctu-
ality as he did those belonging to the publishers of the
journals just alluded to, but that he was not allowed.'
AValter appealed to the Home Office, but the only reply
he could get from the authorities was that ' he might
receive his foreign papers as a favour ' if he would
promise to the government ' a corresponding favour in
the spirit and tone of his publication.' He appealed
again and again, but only to be told that, ' provided it
could be known what party in politics he meant to
support,' his foreign papers should be delivered to him.' ^
Declining to be thus tied m his politics, he increased his
efforts to obtain news from abroad through channels
that the government was not able to interfere with, and
these efforts became in time so successful that he was
often able to forestall the government itself in obtain-
ing information from the seat of war. The news of the
capitulation of Flnshing in 1809, for instance, was
published in ' The Times ' twenty-four hours before any
other report was received in London. It was claimed
for Walter that his enterprise achieved ' the extinction
of what, before his time, had been an invariable practice
with the General Post Office, the systematic retardation
of foreign intelligence, and the public sale of foreign
news for the benefit of the Lombard Street officials.' ^

' Times, February 11, J810.

- Ibid., July 29, 1847. Jerdan says that as editor of The Sun he
sometimes paid from ten to a hundred guineas for a single French news-
paper, ' if the date was recent, and it contained any fresh account of
Bonaparte's German battles.' {Autobiography, vol. i. p. 166.) We are
told by Savage in an Account of the London Daily Newspapers (1811) that

1803-1811. THE ENTEEPRISE OF 'THE TIMES' 283

Walter's anxiety to make ' The Times ' as attractive
a ])aper as it could be was shown in another way. In
January 1807, he sent Henry Crabb Robinson, who
was then thirty-two, and on the look-out for literary
occupation, to Altona, there to act as special correspon-
dent while the interest of the Napoleonic war was strong
in that neighbourhood. Robinson was not to travel
about in search of news or to watch affairs with his own
eyes, but to reside in Altona. ' I was to i-eceive from
the editor of the " Hamburger Correspondenten," ' he
said, ' all the public documents at his disposal, and was
to have the benefit also of a mass of information of which
the restraints of the German press did not permit him
to avail himself.' His letters from Altona appeared in
' The Times ' between March and August 1807, as
correspondence from ' the banks of the Elbe,' and on
his way home he sent three other letters from Stock-
holm and Gothenburg.^

During the first half of 1808, being in London,
Robinson was made ' a sort of foreign editor ' by
Walter. His duties were ' to translate from the foreign
papers and write on foreign politics.' ' It was my
practice,' he said, ' to go to Printing House Square at
five, and to remain there as long as there was anything
to be done. It was my oflfice to cut out odd articles
and paragraphs from other papers, decide on the admis-
sion of correspondence, &c. ; but there was always a
higher power behind. While I was in my room, Mr.

the editors of the daily papers were at that time supplied by ' the foreign
department of the Post Office ' with ' the principal contents of the con-
tinental newspapers, translated into the English language, for which the
proprietors of the papers pay a weekly or annual sum,' the foreign papers
themselves not being delivered till next day to those to whom they were
addressed.

' Diary, Beminiscences aiid Correspondence of Henry Orahb SoUnson,
vol. i. p. 122.

284 IN JAMES PERRY'S TIME ch. ii.

"Walter was in his, and there the great leader, the
article that was talked about, was written.' ^ The prin-
cipal leader writer of The Times,' while Robinson was
thus employed, was Peter Fraser, a young clergyman
who afterwards became rector of Kegworth, in Leicester-
shire. ' He used to sit in Walter's parlour,' we are told,
' and write his articles after dinner.' In Fraser's
absence, the work was done by Edward Sterling, a
retired captain of militia, who also wrote special articles
on military and other questions, signed Vetus, which
caused some stir at this time.^ Walter's general adviser
in the editorship seems to have been Combe, the brilliant
and eccentric author of ' The Travels of Dr. Syntax in
Search of the Picturesque,' who was a prisoner living
within the rules of the King's Bench, but who was
often let out on a holiday, which he spent in Printing
House Square.*

Robinson was again employed as special correspon-
dent of ' The Times ' in the autumn of 1808. On this
occasion he was sent to Spam, and his letters written
between August 2 and the middle of the foUowmof
January, were dated from ' the shores of the Bay of
Biscay.' On reaching Corunna, he said, ' I put myself
in immediate communication with the editor of the
miserable little daily newspaper, and from him I obtained
the Madrid papers and pamphlets. My business was to
collect news and forward it by every vessel that left the
port, and I spent the time between the reception and
transmission of intelligence in translating the public

^ Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson,
vol. i. p. 138.

° Ibid. , vol. i. p. 153. — Carlyle, in his Life of John Sterling (p. 35), says
that Captain Sterling, the father, began to write for The Times in 1812,
and a collection of liis letters, signed Vetus, and reprinted in a volume,
appeared between March 10 and May 10, in that year. But, according to
Robinson, the engagement began three or four years earlier.

' Diary of Senry Crabb Robinson, vol. i. pp. 153, 154.

1794. 'THE MORNING ADVEKTISER ' 285

documents and in writing comments. I was anxious to
conceal the nature of my occupation, but I found it
necessary from time to time to take some friends into
my confidence.'^ Soon after Hs return to England
Robinson ceased to write for ' The Times,' but his part-
ing with Walter was friendly, and they continued on
good tei-ms.^

While ' The Times ' and other young papers were
making their way, those of an older sort were dropping
out. The once famous ' Public Advertiser ' had gradu-
ally lost gi'ound during many years before 1792, when
Henry Sampson Woodfall sold it, and it disappeared
altogether in 1794. Its place was in some sort taken
by ' The Morning Advertiser,' the first nmnber of which
was published on February 8, 1794, and which, though
it did not quite set the fashion, is the most noteworthy
example of a class of journalism that was now becoming
important. Anxious to have an organ of its own, the
society of licensed victuallers started ' The Morning
Advertiser,' to a copy of which every subscriber was
entitled, and thus a respectable circulation was at once
secured, along with a good advertising connection, and
a convenient medium was established both for special
trade information, and for the presenting of such general
news and the advocacy of such political and social
opinions as were most approved by the compact and
ready-made body of readers. There was not room for
m.uch independence or literary culture in this plan,
but in the case of ' The Morning Advertiser ' it worked
well. Some other trade journals were less successful.

> Diary of Henry Grabb Robinson, vol. i. p. 143.

' Robinson says (p. 152) : ' He had a kindly feeling towards me, and
his conduct had been uniformly friendly and respectful. He had never
treated me as one who received his wages, and at his table no one could
have guessed our relation to each other.'

286 IN JAMES PERRY'S TIME ch. ix.

' The Gazetteer,' which had for a long time been ' the
booksellers' paper,' having been bought up by Daniel
Stuart in 1798 and absorbed in 'The Morning Post,' a
successor to it, ' The British Press,' was started in 1803
with a great flourish of trumpets, but never managed to
be prosperous. ' The Day,' commenced in 1798 and
carried on for nearly twenty years in the interests of
the auctioneers, had even feebler and less dignified life
before it was merged in 'The New Times' in 1817 ;
and the old ' Public Ledger,' for a long time the accre-
dited organ of the whole mercantile community until
' The Times ' usurped most of its functions, and after-
wards specially concerned in shipping aiFairs, has alone
survived to the present day, though the yet older
'Lloyd's List,' commenced in 1726, flourished in its
way until 1836, when it was incorporated with ' The
Shipping and Mercantile Gazette.' One of the shortest
lived of the class journals m George III.'s reign
was ' The Aurora,' in which the hotel-keepers hoped to
improve on the example of ' The Morning Advertiser.'
It was commenced in 1802, under somewhat unfavour-
able conditions. ' Our editor,' said WUliam Jerdan, one
of its reporters, ' was originally intended for the kirk,
and was a well-informed person ; but to see him at or
after midnight, in his oflicial chair a- writing his leader,
was a trial for a philosopher. With the slips of paper
before him, a pot of porter close at hand, and a pipe
of tobacco in his mouth or casually laid down, he
proceeded secundum artem. The head hung, with the
chin on his collar-bone, as in deep thought — a whiffy
— another — a tug at the beer — and a line and a half
or two lines committed to the blotted paper ; by this
process, repeated with singular regularity, he would
contrive, between the hours of twelve and three, to

1798-1803. SOME TRADE AND CLASS JOURNALS 287

produce as decent a column as the ignorant public
required.' ^

There were trade organs among the evening as well
as among the mornmg papers. The booksellers, who
in 1803 started ' The British Press ' in opposition to
' The Morning Post,' at the same time, in fm"ther
rivalry of Daniel Stuart, commenced ' The Globe ' in

' Jerdan, Autobiography, vol. i. pp. 83-86. Mark Supple, who died
in 1807, was another reporter for Tlie Aurora, but liis chief connection
had been before this with The Morning Chronicle. His friend Peter
Finnerty, a yet more famous reporter, gives this account of him : ' Mark
Supple was big-boned and loud-voiced, and had as much wit and fun as
an Irish porter could carry. He took his wine freely at Bellamy's (a
great place in those days for reporters as well as M.P.'s), and then went
up into the gallery and reported like a gentleman and a man of genius.
The members hardly knew their own speeches again, but they admired
liis free and bold manner of dressing them up ; none of them ever
went to the printing oifice of TJie Morning Chronicle, to complain that
the tall Irishman had given a lame, sneaking version of their senti-
ments. His manner seemed to please, and he presumed upon it. One
evening as he sat at his post in the gallery, waiting the issue of things, a
dead silence happened to prevail in the house. It was when Mr. Adding-
ton was Speaker. The bold leader of ' ' the pressgaug " was never much on
serious business bent, and at this time he was particularly full of meat and
wine. Delighted, therefore, with the pause, but thinking that something
might as well be going forward, he called out lustily, " A song from Mr.
Speaker." Imagine Addington's long, prim, upright figure, his consterna-
tion, and utter want of preparation for, or a clue to repel, such an inter-
ruption of the rules and orders of parliament. The house was in a roar.
Pitt, it is said, could hardly keep his seat for laughing. When the bustle
and confusion were abated, the sergeant-at-arms went into the gallery to
take the audacious culprit into custody, and indignantly asked who it was ;
but nobody would tell. Mark sat like a tower on the hindermost bench
of the gallery, imperturbable in his own gravity, and safe in the faith of
the brotherhood of reporters, who alone were in the secret. At length,
as the mace-bearer was making fruitless inquiries and getting impatient.
Supple pointed to a fat Quaker who sat in the middle of the crowd, and
nodded assent that he was the man. The Quaker was, to his great sur-
prise, taken into immediate custody, but after a short altercation and
some further explanation, he was released, and the hero of our story put
in his place for an hour or two, but let off on an assurance of his contri-
tion and of showing less wit and more discretion for the future.' — Knight
Hunt, vol. ii. p. 273.

288 IN JAMES perry's time ch. rx.

opposition to ' The Courier ' ; and ' The Globe ' survived
its comrade, being afterwards amalgamated with ' The
Traveller,' which was for some years the special spokes-
man of the commercial travellers. ' The Traveller,' while
it lasted, was much more than a class journal, being like
' The Globe,' and while it was edited by Edward Quin,
as well as in later days, a bold advocate of political
reforms. ' If it has not much wit or brilliancy,' said a
contemporary critic, 'it is distinguished by sound
judgment, careful information, and constitutional prin-
ciples.' ^ ' The Star,' which Peter Stuart had established
in 1788, was, however, during many years the leading
evening paper on the Whig side, Campbell the poet
beino- one of its writers after 1804, when he was engaged
at a salary of four guineas aweek,^just as ' The Courier,'
while Street edited it for Daniel Stuart, was the
principal supporter of the government. Among other
and as violent Tory evening papers, ' The Sun ' had
during many years an evil reputation. It was started
in 1792 by George Rose and others at the instigation of
Pitt, especially to advocate their views on home and
foreign policy.^ It was at first conducted with some

' Mlinbiirgh Review, May 1823, p. 362.

^ Beattie, Life of Thomas Campbell, vol. ii. p. 20.

' ' I have just had a visit from young AValter,' James Bland-Burges,
who was foreign under secretary, wrote on October 15, 1792, to Charles
Long, afterwards Lord Parnborough, ' who is furious about the success of
character of The Sun, and came to me, as to an impartial person, to complain
of the partiality shown by the government, and especially by Mr. Rose, to
that paper, which he said was very unjust, considering his long services,
and the many advantages which government, and especially Rose, had
derived from Tlie Times. He told me it was well known that Rose
recommended Tlie Sim, and patronised its publisher ; and he threw out
strong hints of Mr. Aust giving early accounts of foreign transactions,
which he also stated to be very ill usage. . . . On the whole, he was very
siilky and impudent, and said if he found things went on as they are now
doing, and if he did not find some support from me, who he knew by
experience never interfered in the newspaper business, he certainly should
not suffer himself to be ruined by the success The Sun must certainly

1778-1811. CHAJS^GES TN THE PRESS 289

spirit, carrying on a fierce rivalry witli ' The True Sun,'
another Tory print. Before long, however, the kindest
thing that could be said about it was that ' " The
Sun " appears daily, but never shines.' ^

During the years before the close of the eighteenth
century, great changes were made in the weekly press,
the main features of which will be noticed hereafter.
All the old-fashioned Saturday papers, like ' Read's
Weekly Journal ' and ' The London Chronicle,' mis-
cellanies of news compiled from the daily journals, with
essays m the style of Johnson and Goldsmith, had
died out, or were dying, and others of different sorts
came to take then places. In 1777 London had only
one weekly paper, ' The London Chronicle ' ; in 1813 it
had thirty-four, of which sixteen were pubhshed on
Sundays. In the interval there had been upstarts and
newcomers, appearances and disappearances, enough to
provoke Crabbe's mockery in 1785 : —

In shoals the hours their constant numbers bring,
Like insects waking to the advance of spring,
Which take their rise from grubs obscure that lie
In shallow pools, or thence ascend the sky ;
Such are these base ephemeras, so born
To die before the next revolving morn.

meet with from a priority of intelligence which, he had undoubted uifor-
mation, came from the treasury and our office. . . . From the whole tenor
of his conversation it was evident that he had not the slightest idea of
either of us having anything to do with it ; and he was much too angry
not to have mentioned such a circumstance if he had suspected it.' (Bland-
Burges Papers, p. 226.) ' Young Walter' must have been the founder of
The Times. The second John Walter was only eight years old in 1792.
Sheridan, in one of his speeches in parliament, referred to Tlie Sun as
' one paper in particular, said to be the property of members of that house,
which had for its motto a garbled part of a beautiful sentence, when it
might, with much more propriety have assumed the whole :

Solem quis dicere falsum
Audeat ? Ille etiam csecos instare tumultus
Ssepe monet, fraudemque, et operta tumescere bella.'
1 Edinburgh Beview, May 1823, p. 368.

VOL. I. U

290 IN JAMES PERRY'S TIME oh. ix.

Yet thus they diflFer : insect tribes are lost

In the first visit of a winter frost ;

WhUe these remain, a base but constant breed,

Whose swarming sons their short-lived sires succeed.

No changing season makes their number less ;

Nor Sunday shines a Sabbath on the press.

Then, lo ! the sainted ' Monitor ' is bom.

Whose pious face some sacred texts adorn.

As artful sinners cloak the sacred sin.

To veil with seeming grace the guile within.

So moral essays in his front appear.

But all is carnal business in the rear —

The fresh-coined lie, the secret whispered last.

And all the gleanings of the six days past.

With these, retired, through half the Sabbath day,

The London lounger yawns his hours away.

And perhaps it was only because no Sunday papers
could reach his quiet country parish that the kindly
parson was able to say with any chance of being listened
to—

Not so, my little flock, your preacher fly,
Nor waste the time no worldly wealth can buy ;
But let the decent maid and sober clown
Pray for these idlers of the sinful town.
This day, at least, on nobler themes bestow.
Nor give to Woodfall or the world below. '

Neither of the Woodfalls had anything to do with
' Johnson's Sunday Monitor,' which, to Crabbe's horror,
led the way in Sabbath desecration by newspapers in
1778. It fairly answered to the poet's description,
however, and lived long and creditably after 1792,
when ' The Observer,' established by Clement, began
to take the lead of the Sunday papers, which, of course,
were then sold at the same high price that the stamp
duty rendered necessary for all the daily papers.

The proprietors of the Sunday papers were discreet.
In 1799 Lord Belgrave, at the instigation of William
Wilberforce, introduced in the House of Peers a bill for

' Crabbe, The Newspaper.

1778-1811. THE OLD SUNDAY PAPERS 291

suppressing tliem on religious grounds ; but as it was
urged that of the four Sunday papers then published
three were sturdy supporters of the government, whose
secular help condoned all their Sabbath-breaking, the
motion was defeated. ^ As the number mcreased the
government had less reason to be satisfied with the
Sunday papers ; but most of them, in so far as they
dealt with politics, were for some time ministerial.

I*fotable commencements of this time were ' Bell's
Weekly Messenger,' started in May 1796, and ' Bell's
Weekly Dispatch,' which dates from the autumn of
1801. John Bell, their founder, bom in 1745, was a
prodigy. ' He had no acquirements, perhaps not even
grammar,' said Leigh Hunt, ' but his taste in putting
forth a publication was new in those times, and may
be admired m any.' ^ He issued ' The British Theatre,'
and much else, besides starting several newspapers.
His ' Messenger ' was, from the first, especially a
farmer's paper. His ' Dispatch ' was chiefly a sporting
paper, until ' Bell's Life,' established in 1822, super-
seded it as a chronicler of pugilism.

The growth of newspapers was not materially
affected by the further increase of the stamp duty,
which, with an allowance of twenty per cent, on large
supplies, was raised to threepence-hal^enny in 1804,
and to fourpence in 1815, the tax on advertisements
bemg m the latter year advanced to three shillmgs and
sixpence ; but these heavy burdens, necessitating a high
charge, and hampering the proprietors in their efforts
to give good money's worth to their readers, were an
inevitable cause of much complainuig.

^ Pa/rliameniary History, vol. xxxiv. p. 1006 ; Life of Wilberforce,
Tfol. ii. p. 424.

^ Leigh Hunt's Autobiography, vol. i. p. 276.

V 2

292

CHAPTER X.

DANIEL STUAKT'S WUITERS.
1795—1811.

The group of contributors wliom Daniel Stuart gathered
round him after he had bought ' The Morning Post '
was in many ways noteworthy, and his relations with
them help us to know something of the literary side of
newspaper enterprise m the years just before and after
the commencement of the nineteenth century.

Stuart himself, as we have seen, was a remarkable
man. Takmg charge of ' The Post ' when it had a cir-
culation of only 350, and when it was despised even by
the few readers whom it supplied with more scurrilous
and scandalous gossip than was given in any other
paper of the day, he made it, while in his hands, a more
successful and influential journal than either ' The
Morniag Chronicle ' was at that time under James Perry
or ' The Times ' under the first John Walter ; and when
he left it — to sink again into the disreputable con-
dition from which he had raised it — he secured like
fortune for another paper, ' The Courier,' which also
was only powerful and profitable while he was its pro-
prietor. In his old age he prided himself, with reason,
on the skill with which, as a shrewd man of busuiess,
he had so handled two shattered properties as to make
them, not only great political authorities and pioneers

1795-1811. DANIEL STUART'S ACHIEVEMENTS 293

of a new order of journalism, but also sources of
considerable wealth, and he was tlien inclhied to
undervalue the help he had received from those who
wrote for him ; but they found him a good paymaster,
according to the scale of pay in vogue at that time,
and a generous friend. He was also a man of much
literary taste and political tact, and, writing well him-
self, he gave furthel* evidence of his ability, for which
he deserves credit, in taking advantage of so much of
the literary skUl and political intelligence that were
then in the newspaper market.

He was not yet twenty-nine when, in the autumn of
1795, he became proprietor of ' The Mornuig Post,' and
his brother-in-law, James Mackintosh, was only his
senior by a year. Mackintosh had just been called to
the bar, and — rendered already famous by the ' Yindicite
GallicEe,' with which he had rebutted Burke's ' Reflec-
tions on the French Revolution ' — was too staunch an
opponent of Pitt's foreign policy to be in full agreement
with the views put forward in ' The Morning Post.'
But he and Stuart were fast friends as well as relations,
and though his share in the original writing for the
paper, being anonymous, cannot now be ascertamed, it
appears to have been considerable ; and the dignity and
vigour of the articles published under the new editor-
ship must be attributed in great measure to his influence,
even when he was not himself the writer. Much of his
spare time, however, had to be given to ' The Oracle,'
for which he had ' superintended the foreign news '
since 1789 ; and of which his other brother-in-law,
Peter Stuart, now had charge.^ Perhaps Mackmtosh
was more helpful to ' The Morning Post ' as an adviser
of its editor, supplying him with political information
and guiding his policy, than as an actual contributor.
' Daniel Stuart in Gentleman's Magazine, July 1838, p. 24.

294 DANIEL STUAET'S WRITERS ch. x.

It was to Mm at any rate that Daniel Stuart owecl his
introduction to at least one of his principal contributors,
and through this one to thi-ee or four others.

Mackintosh, a widower since the previous April,^
went down to Bristol at Christmas 1797, on a visit to
the Wedgwoods, with whom Coleridge was making a
longer stay. The lawyer was much struck by the poet,
although, before their residence under the same roof was
over, Coleridge quarrelled with Mackintosh, who was a
skilful debater, and who seems to have taken an unkind
pleasure in bringing out his hazy notions on reHgion and
philosophy and then overwhelming him by his ' sharp
cut-and-thrust fencing ' in argument. While they were
still friends, however, Mackintosh wrote up to Stuart
asking him to put some work in the way of Coleridge.
Stuart arranged to do this, and from the commencement
of 1798 Coleridge was engaged to write ' pieces of poetry
and such trifles ' for ' The Morning Post ' at a salary of
a guinea a week, he being expected, it would seem, to
supply, on an average, one poem each week for his
guinea. ^ The pay was not bad, seeing that most of his
contributions were short epigrams and squibs, generally
of not more than four or sometimes two lines apiece, ^
and that of these Coleridge only furnished ten or a dozen

' Of his late wife, Stuart's sister, Mackintosh said in a letter to a
friend : ' I met a woman who, by the tender management of my weak-
nesses, gradually corrected the most pernicious of them. She gently re-
claimed me from dissipation. She propped my weak and irresolute
nature. She urged my indolence to all the exertions that have been
useful or creditable to me, and she was perpetually at hand to admonish
my heedlessness and improvidence.' — R. J. Mackintosh, ii/e o/ Sir James-
Mackintosh, vol. i. p. 91.

" Gentleman's Magazine, May 1838, p. 485.

' Such of them as his daughter could trace, and as were not included
by Coleridge himself in his collected poems, are printed in Essays on his
own Times, which also gives most of the prose contributions to The
Morning Post and The Goxm-ier. With a veiy few exceptions, all these;
were, of course, anonymous.

1798. COLEEIDGE'S NEWSPAPEK VERSE 295

in the course of eight months. He started splendidly,
however, with his famous ' war eclogue,' 'Fire, Famitie,
and Slaughter,' which, having been written early iu
1796, was copied out and first published in ' The
Morniag Post ' of January 8, 1798, and caused some
excitement and not a little indignation by its allusion
to Pitt — ' letters four do form his name ' — as the person
who had let loose the three malevolent forces on the
world ; of whom Slaughter said, for instance :

He came by stealth, and unlocked my den,
And I have drunk the blood since then
Of twice three hundred thousand men.

Another poem, worth its guinea many times over,
was ' The Recantation,' written in February 1797, and
afterwards styled ' France, an Ode,' which, without the
fifth stanza, appeared in ' The Post ' of April 16, 1798,
with a preface in which Stuart said : ' The following
excellent ode is in unison with the feelings of every
friend to liberty and foe to oppression, of all who, ad-
mu'ing the French Revolution, detest and deplore the
conduct of France towards Switzerland. It is very
satisfactory to find so zealous and steady an advocate
for freedom as Mr. Coleridge concur with us in con-
demning the conduct of France towards the Swiss
cantons. The poem itself is written with great energy.
The second, third, and fourth stanzas contain some of
the most vigorous Hnes we have ever read.' Those
readers of ' The Morning Post ' who did not discover
sedition and blasphemy in them shared Stuart's admi-
ration of ' The Recantation ' and of ' Fire, Famine, and
Slaughter ' ; but Stuart complained that he did not get
more poems of the same sort, and that some which he
did get were not to his liking. One piece, which he
refused to publish, was an ungenerous attack on the
man who had befiiended Coleridge. ' Mackmtosh,'

296 DANIEL STUART'S WRITEJRS ch. x.

said Stuart, ' had had one of his front teeth broken, and
the stump was black. The poem described a hungry pert
Scotchman, with httle learning but much brass, with a
black tooth in front, indicative of the blackness of his
heart.' ^

Coleridge was only twenty-five when he began to
write for ' The Morning Post ' ; but he had already
followed up his first contribution, in 1793, to ' The
Morning Chronicle,' by sending other poems to Perry,
and had done more important work for ' The Critical
Review ' and ' The Monthly Magazine,' besides making,
in ' The Watchman,' a luckless experiment at editing
and publishing a weekly paper or magazuie on his own
account ; and he was now glad of all the money he
could earn, though not inclmed or able to earn it in
businesslilie ways. During part of 1798, according to
Stuart, ' Coleridge attended not at all to his engage-
ment with me, but went about the country on other
pursuits.' His friend Southey supplied the deficiency,
however ; and when Coleridge went to Germany with
Wordsworth and Wordsworth's sister, in September,
Southey contmued to write verse for ' The Morning
Post,' drawing the same salary of a guinea a week for
his own use.'^ In the autumn of 1799 Coleridge re-
turned to England, and soon after that he entered upon
a more important engagement with Stuart.

There has been much controversy about this en-
gagement, its nature and duration, and from admirers
of Coleridge there has been much condemnation of
Stuart for his treatment of the poet ; but the facts, so
far as we know them, if fairly looked at, reflect no blame
on either party. Coleridge was a profound thinker, a
brilliant talker, and an excellent writer of prose as well

' Gentleman's Magazine, May, 1838, p. 486.
'' Ibid,, p. 487.

1798-1799. COLERIDGE AS A JOURNALIST 297

as of poetry, but he was not suited for a journalist,
bound to supply, at tixed times and at regular intervals,
so much ' copy ' as was required from bim ; and we
need not be surprised at his soon breaking down in the
uncongenial work that he had undertaken, partly be-
cause he wanted to earn money, and partly because,
before trial, he thought the work would be agreeable to
him. Nor is it strange that Stuart should have been
disappointed at the failure of an arrangement from which,
when it was begun, he had evidently expected much
advantage both to himself and to the friend whom he
honestly desired to serve, and did serve very generously
so far as he could, and whom it is plain that he all along
very highly esteemed for his many excellent qualities,
although he soon found, and was repeatedly reminded,
that his friend was a difficult man to deal with.

Immediately after Coleridge's, return from Germany,
he resumed the writing of occasional poems for ' The
Morning Post,' one short poem of his being published
on August 29, and his next contribution being the first
draft of ' The Devil's Thoughts,' which was afterwards
considerably altered. Other verse followed, and in
December it was decided that Coleridge, as Stuart said,
should ' give up his whole time and services to " The
Morning Post," ' and receive in return Stuart's ' largest
salary.' What that salary was we are not told, but as
Coleridge, who was quite satisfied with it, stated that at
that date 350^. a year was all he cared to earn, and as
the Wedgwoods then allowed liim a pension of 150^. a
year which he sent to his wife, we may assume that it
was not less than about 4^. a week, though partly paid
in board and lodging. ' I took a first floor for hun,'
Stuart tells us, ' in King Street, Covent Garden, at my
tailor's, Howell's, whose wife was a cheerful, good
housewife, of middle age, who I knew would nurse

298 DANIEL STUART'S WRITERS ch. x.

Coleridge as kindly as if lie were her son ; and lie owned
he was comfortably taken care of.' ^

The scheme beffan well. Coleridfj^e wrote a column
of shrewd and trenchant criticism on the new constitu-
tion for the French Republic, under Bonaparte as first
consul, which had just then been promulgated. This
article appeared in ' The Morning Post ' of December 26,
and there was another on the 31st. 'I dedicate mj
nights and days to Stuart,' Coleridge wrote to Words-
worth at this time.^ At least fourteen long articles,
and perhaps four or five more, dealing almost exclu-
sively with French politics and with England's con-
cern therein, were supphed by him in the course of
January, and about half as many in February. Thus.
far, Stuart could not grumble about his bargam, and
nevsspaper readers were astonished and dehghted at
the forcible and wise writing that was now provided for
them. Two articles in particular, one discussing Lord
Greiiville's reply to Bonaparte's overtures for peace at
the end of January, and the other analysing Pitt's cha-
racter, which was published on March 19, 1800, became
the talk of the town. Of the article on Pitt and ' The
Devil's Thoughts,' Stuart said, ' I never knew two
pieces of writing, so wholly disconnected with daily
occurrences, produce so lively a sensation. Several
hundred sheets extra were sold by them, and the paper
was in demand for days and weeks afterwards.' ^ The
article on Pitt, however, was apjDarently the only one
that Coleridge supplied in March, and he wrote but one
durmg the following month. His energy was already
nearly exhausted, and even Stuart's unusual efforts to^
keep him up to the mark were of no avail.

' Gentleman's Magazine, May 1838, p. 487.

'' Dr. Wordsworth, Life of Wordsworth, vol. i. p. 160.

^ Gentleman's Magazine, May 1838, p. 488.

1799-1800. COLEEIDGE'S LEADEE- WETTING 299'

' My practice,' said Stuart, ' was to call on liim in
the middle of the day, talk over the news, and project a
leading paragraph for the next moriaing. In conversa-
tion he would make a brilliant display. Tins reminds
me of a story he often told with glee. At a dumer-
party. Sir Richard Phillips, the bookseller, being pre-
sent, Coleridge held forth with his usual splendour,
when Su' Richard, who had been hstening with delight,
came round behind his chair, and, tapping him on the
shoulder, said, " I wish I had you ui a garret without a
coat to your back." In something like this state I had
Coleridge ; but, though he would talk over everythmg
so well, I soon found he could not write daily on the
occurrences of the day.' Finding that he could not keep
his erratic contributor at work by shutting liim up in
his King Street lodging, Stuart tried another plan. ' I
took him to the gallery of the House of Commons, in
hopes he would assist me in parliamentary reporting,
and that a near view of men and things would bring
up new topics in his mind. But he never could write
a thing that was immediately required of hun. The
thought of compulsion disarmed him.' ^

On one occasion Coleridge did a memorable piece
of parliamentary reporting. Pitt was to make an im-
portant speech on February 17, asking for a war vote.
According to Coleridge, or rather to Gilhnan writing
about it long afterwards, he had to be so many hours
in the house waiting for the oration that, after listening to
its florid beginning, and hearing enough of what followed
to know that it was ' a repetition of words, and words
only,' he fell asleep, and only woke up in time to go
back to the office — where, a report of some sort being
needed, he ' volunteered a speech for Mr. Pitt, and wrote
one off-hand which answered the purpose exceed-

' Gentleman's Magazine, May 1838, pp. 487, 488.

300 DANIEL STUART'S WRITERS ch. x.

ingly well.'^ Stuart averred, however, that he also
was in the house at the time, that Coleridge did not go to
sleep, and that his report was fairly accurate, except
when he purposely altered the phrases, as in making Pitt
call Bonaparte ' the child and nursling ' — instead of
* the child and champion' — of Jacobinism. ^

Coleridge's ill health, causing nervous depression as
well as nervous excitement, each of them as great an
obstacle as physical pain to steady newspaper work,
explains his inability to meet Stuart's requirements.
' Having arranged with him the matter of a leading
paragraph one day,' said Stuart, ' I went about six
o'clock for it. I found him stretched on the sofa groan-
ing Avith pain. He had not written a word, nor could
he write. The subject was one of a temporary, an
important, and a pressing nature. I returned to " The
Morning Post " office, wrote it out myself, and then I
went to Coleridge, at Howell's, read it over, and begged
he would correct it and decorate it a little mth some of
his light, graceful touches. When I had done reading,
he exclaimed, " Me correct that ! It is as well written
as I or any other man could write it." And so I was
obliged to content myself with my own words.' ^

Though he had already ascertained that Coleridge
was not to be relied upon for a regular supply of ' copy '
at regular uatervals, Stuart knew the value of such help
as Coleridge could render when he chose or was well
enough, ' Could Coleridge have been so far a man of
busmess,' he said several years afterwards in a letter
to Henry Nelson Coleridge, ' as to write three or four
hours a day, there was nothing I would not have paid
for his assistance. I would have taken him into
partnership, and I would have enabled him to make a

' Gillman, Life of Coleridge.

• Gentleman's Magazine, May, 1838, p. 488. ' Ibid., p. 487.

1800-1802. COLERIDGE'S LEADER- WEITING 301

large fortune. To write the leading paragraphs of a
newspaper I would prefer him to Mackintosh, Burke,
or any man I ever heard of. His observations not only
were confirmed by good sense, but displayed extensive
knowledge, deep thought, and well-grounded foresight :
they were so brilliantly ornamented, so classically de-
lightful. They were the writings of a scholar, a gentle-
man, and a statesman, without personal sarcasm or
illiberality of any kind.' ^

There can be no doubt that, early in 1800, Stuart did
offer Coleridge a permanent and lucrative engagement,
though probably Coleridge exaggerated when he told a
friend that Stuart had proposed terms to him by which
he could ' make almost sure of 2,000^. a year.' What-
ever the proposal was, however, it was scouted. ' I told
laim,' the enthusiastic poet and philosopher wrote, ' that
I could not give up the country and tlie lazy readmg of
old folios for two thousand times 2,000Z. ; in short, that,
beyond 350?. a year, I considered money as a real evil.' ^
And instead of remaiiimg in London, to be looked after
by Stuart and Mrs. Howell, and to go on earning the
modest income that he thought would content him,
Coleridge, in the summer of 1800, went to live, in a
sort of partnership with his wife's brother-in-law, Robert
Southey, at Glreta Hall, near Keswick, whence he sent
occasional articles to ' The Morning Post,' but appa-
rently not more than about twenty during the next two
years. For these and for a few fresh poems he was duly
paid by Stuart ; and some of his contributioiis, at any
rate, were extremely helpful to the paper.

His most important articles during these years were
six, published in the autumn of 1802, denouncmg

1 Golendge, BiograpUa Literaria, vol. ii. p. 395 (Biographical Supple-
ment).

^ Essays on his own Times, vol. i. p. xci. (Introduction).

302 DANIEL STUART'S WRITERS ch. x.

Bonaparte, and so severely criticising the peace of
Amiens, as it was called, which had been concluded in
the preAdous April, that Fox, who thought they were
written by Mackintosh, referred to them in the House
of Commons as a principal cause of the renewal of the
war.-^ They certainly gave great oflFence to the French
first consul, and much satisfaction to the English war
party ; so that Coleridge, who had somewhat changed
his political opinions by this time, might now be charged,
justly or unjustly, as he had charged Pitt four years
before, with having had a hand in unloosing the cruel
forces of Fire, Famine, and Slaughter.

Speaking of his share in promoting the political
power and commercial success of ' The Morning Post,'
which he somewhat over-estimated, Coleridge said : ' I
am persuaded that " The Mornmg Post" proved a far
more useful ally to the government in its most important
objects, in consequence of its being considered as mode-
rately anti- ministerial, than if it had been the avowed
eulogist of Mr. Pitt. The rapid and unusual increase
in the sale is a sufficient pledge that genuine impartiality,
with a respectable portion of literary talent, will secure
the success of a newspaper without the aid of party or
ministerial patronage. But by impartiality I mean an
honest and enlightened adherence to a code of intelligible
principles.' ^ In so far as he had a code of intelligible
prmciples, Coleridge loyally adhered to it, in and out
of ' The Morning Post '' ; and of literary talent he had
more than a respectable portion, though he used it but
fitfully. ' Worlds of fine thinking he buried in that
vast abyss, never to be disentombed,' wrote De Quincey
concerning the better class of newspapers in his day.
' Like the sea it has swallowed treasures without end,
that no divmg bell will bring up again ; but nowhere,

' Biographia Literaria, vol. i. p. 222, note. ' Ibid., p. 220.

179&-1802. OTHER POETS OF 'THE POST' 303

througliout its shoreless magazines of wealth, does there
lie such a bed of pearls, confounded with the rubbish
and purgavienta of ages, as in the political papers of
Coleridge.'

Writiag in all some sixty or seventy articles in ' The
Morning Post,' in the coiu"se of three years, and chiefly
in the early months of 1800 and the autumn of 1802,
besides poems and scraps of verse in 1798 and 1799,
Coleridge also procured for it contributions from some
of his most intimate friends. Southey was his principal
assistant and locum tenens in the laureateship of the
paper ; but Wordsworth and Charles Lloyd also helped
to fill the ' poet's corner,' wHch generally contauied
something on three or four days out of the six in every
week. As early as February 13, 1798, we find a sonnet
by W. W., which was probably Wordsworth's, though
it was not included among his reprinted poems ; while on
February 24 we have a signed anacreontic by Lloyd, and
two days later an ' inscription for a monument at Merida '
by Southey. There were other verse writers on the
staff of ' The Morning Post,' however — one known by
the pseudonym of Tabitha Bramble being the most pro-
fuse of all ; and there was a plentiful supply of short
skits, like this ' Impromptu on reading a notice to the
creditors of Homer, a Hnendraper, and lately a bank-
rupt,' which appeared on April 19, 1798 :

That Homer should a bankrupt be
Is not so very Od-cP-ye-see,
Since (but perhaps I'm wrong instructed)
Most Ill-he-had his books conducted.

Those lines may or may not have been written by Lamb,
who evidently did a great deal of unsigned work for
' The Post,' though Stuart said : ' As for good Charles
Lamb, I never could make anything of his writings.
Coleridge often and repeatedly pressed me to settle him

304 DANTEL STUAET'S WEITERS en. x,

on a salary, and often and repeatedly did I try ; but it
would not do. Of politics he knew nothing ; they were
out of his line of reading and thought ; and his drollery
was vapid when given in short paragraphs fit for a
newspaper.' ^

Lamb was a copious contributor of short paragraphs,
generally under the head of ' Fashionable Intelligence,'
or as pendants to the political and other notes, which,
whether vapid or not, helped to amuse the readers of
' The Post ' ; and he gave a better account than Stuart
did of his achievements in this way. ' In those days,'
he reported, ' every morning paper, as an essential re-
tamer to its establishment, kept an author, who was-
bound to furnish daily a quantum of witty paragraphs.
Sixpence a joke — and it was thought pretty high too —
was Dan Stuart's settled remuneration in these cases.
The chat of the day, scandal — but, above all, dress —
furnished the material. The length of no paragraph
was to exceed seven lines. Shorter they might be, but
they must be poignant. A fashion of flesh-, or rather
pmk-, coloured hose for the ladies, luckily coming up at
the juncture when we were on our probation for the
place of chief jester to S.'s paper, established our repu-
tation m that line. We were pronounced " a capital
hand." 0 the conceits which we varied upon red in all
its prismatic differences ! from the trite and obvious
flower of Cytherea to the flaming costume of the lady
that has her sitting upon " many waters." Then there
was the collateral topic of ankles. What an occasion to
a truly chaste writer, like ourself, of touching that nice
brink, and yet never tumbling over it, of a seemingly
ever approximating something " not quite proper " !
while, like a skilful posture-master balancing between
decorums and their opposites, he keeps the line from

' Oentleman's Magazine, June 1838, p. 577.

1798-1803. LAMB'S 'FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE' 305

which a hair's-breadth deviation is destruction ; hover-
ing in the confines of light and darkness, or where
" both seem either ; " a hazy, uncertain delicacy —
Autolycus-likein the play, stiU puttmgofFhis expectant
auditory with "Whoop, do me no harm, good man ! "
But, above all, that conceit arrided us most at the
time, and still tickles our midriflf to remember, where,
allusively to the flight of Astrsea — ultima ccelestum terras
reliquit — we pronounced, in reference to the stockings
still, that, " Modesty taking her final leave of mortals,
her last blush was visible in her ascent to the heavens
by the tract of the glowing instep." This might be
called the crowning conceit, and was esteemed tolerable
writuig in those days. But the fashion of jokes, with
all other thmgs, passes away ; as did the transient
mode which had so favoured us. The ankles of our
fair friends in a few weeks began to resume their white-
ness, and left us scarce a leg to stand upon. Other
female whims followed, but none methought so pregnant,
so invitatory of shrewd conceits and more than single
meanings.' ^

Poor Lamb, having to leave home at eight o'clock
every morning for his day's work at the India House,
found it necessary to rise at five or half-past five, in
order, he says, to get an hour or an hour and a half
before breakfast in which to turn out his half-dozen
witty paragraphs at sixpence apiece, so as to earn an
extra eighteen shillings a week — ' this manufactory of
jokes being,' as he said, ' our supplementary livelihood,
that supplied us in every want beyond mere bread and
cheese.' And the difficulty of getting hold of funny
subjects, and of handluag them funnily when found,
soon became irksome to him, as monotonous and labo-
rious as would be the eating of six cross-buns every

' Essays of Elia, ' Newspapers Thirty -five Years Ago.'
VOL. I. X

306 DANIEL STUART'S WRITERS ch. x.

morning at daybreak for a twelvemontli. ' Half a dozen
jests in a day (bating Sundays, too), why it seems
nothing ! We make twice the number every day in our
lives as a matter of course, and make no Sabbatical
exemptions. But then they come into our head. But
when the head has to go out to them — when the moun-
tain must go to Mahomet — reader, try it for once, only
for one short twelvemonth ! It was not every week
that a question of pink stockings came up ; but mostly,
instead of it, some rugged, untractable subj ect ; some
topic impossible to be contorted into the risible ; some
feature upon which no smile could play ; some flint
from which no process of ingenuity could procure a
scuitiUation. There they lay ; there your appointed
tale of brickmaking was set before you, which you
must finish, with or without straw, as it happened.
The craving Dragon, the public — like him in Bel's
temple — must be fed ; it expected its daily rations ; and
Daniel and ourselves, to do us justice, did the best we
could on this side bursting him.' ^

' Fashionable intelligence,' personal and spicy, had
always been a speciality of ' The Morning Post ' ; and
Stuart, changing its politics, did not choose to abandon
this means of pleasing his readers ; but the tone of this
portion of the paper was greatly improved in his day,
while Lamb was helping Mm with it. They were harm-
less, not scurrilous jokes, good-humoured and not
vicious tittle-tattle, that now appeared. Lamb says
that he worked on at the ' Morning Post ' ofiice, ' with
its gilt globe-topped front, facing that emporium of our
artists' grand annual exposure,' which was in those
days held in Somerset Plouse, Strand, till the paper
passed out of Stuart's hands in 1803, when he trans-
ferred his services to ' The Albion,' the office of wliich,

^ Essays of Mia, 'Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago.'

1795-1803. THE EDITING OF 'THE MORNING POST' 307

* late Rackstrow's Museum,' was in Fleet Street.
' What a transition,' he exclaims, ' from a handsome
apartment, from rosewood desks and silver inkstands, to
an of&ce — no office, but a den rather, but just redeemed
from the occupation of dead monsters, of which it
seemed redolent — from the centre of loyalty and fashion
to a focus of vulgarity and sedition ! ' ^

' The Morning Post ' became famous in Stuart's
hands on account of other matter than such as Lamb
supplied to it ; and it had smart political articles, besides
those which Coleridge, and perhaps Mackintosh, fur-
nished. Though Stuart wrote much himself, he must
have had able contributors, whose names have not come
down to us, to assist liim m discussing the stirring
questions of the day — among which, if the French war
was especially prominent, there were others as momen-
tous as the troubles m Ireland that led to the Act of
Union in 1800, and much else. In the actual work of
the office his principal assistant was George Lane. ' At
first,' Stuart said of Lane, ' he was slow and feeble, but
his language was always that of a scholar and gentle-
man; rather tame, but free from anything low, scur-
rilous, or "sdolent. After several years of instruction by
me — I may say education — he had become a valuable
parliamentary reporter, a judicious theatrical critic, a
ready translator, and the best writer of jeux <£ esprit I
ever had. He had little knowledge of politics, and
little turn for political writing ; but he was a valuable
assistant. He resided near the office, was ready and
willing at all hours to go anywhere and report any-
thing, and he could do everything. Sometimes I even
entrusted the last duties of the paper, the putting it to
press, to him. Of the corn riots in 1800 he and others
gave long accounts in leaded large type, while " The

' Essays of Mia, ' Newspapers Thirty -five Years Ago.'

X 2

308 DANIEL STUART'S WRITERS ch. x.

Times " and " Herald " had only a few lines in obscure
corners in black. The procession proclaiming peace,
the ascent of balloons, a great fire, a boxing match, a
law trial — m all such occurrences " The Morning Post "
outstripped its competitors.'^ By looking after the
interests of the paper in ways of that sort, Lane ren-
dered great service to Stuart, and Stuart was not un-
grateful.

We have interesting evidence of Stuart's general
mode of dealing with his staff, as well as of his relations
with this assistant-editor, from the assistant-editor him-
self. ' During my connection with him,' said Lane, ' he
uniformly treated me with exceeding kuidness and great
liberality, of which the following particulars may convey
an idea. He proposed to me to enter into a written
engagement with him, which I declined. My refusal
appeared to surprise him, and he said if I felt any cause
of dissatisfaction in the establishment it should be
removed. I answered there was none : I was pleased
with everyone in it and everything about it. He then
said, if I did not consider my salary sufficient -he was
ready to mcrease it ; to which I answered that I was
perfectly satisfied, and felt myself amply compensated
as I stood, but that I wished to hold myself a free man.
This conversation took place at an early period of our
connection, and upon that footing I remained until its
close, during which interval he added more than once
to my income, but not at my instance or request. The
advance always came spontaneously and unsolicited. I
may add that I never heard any member of the esta-
blishment complain of want of liberality on the part
of Mr. Stuart. He wished to have his busmess done
diligently, but was uniformly liberal in compensation.' ^'

' Oentleman's Magazine, July 1838, p. 25.
- Ibid., September 1838, p. 276.

1803-1806. FROM 'THE POST' TO 'THE COURIBB ' 309

This testimony was all the more significant as it was
given after Lane had seriously offended Stuart by leaving
him, early in 1803, to become editor of the new daily
paper, ' The British Press,' which was started in oppo-
sition to ' The Morning Post.' Lane only left his old
employer, however, because Stuart had arranged to sell
' The Post,' which he did before the end of the year for
about 25,000Z. — forty times the amount he had given
for it less than nine years before. After that Stuart
devoted all his attention to ' The Courier,' mitil Peter
Street, who was his partner and business manager fi-om
the first, undertook the editorship.

' The Courier ' aimed all along at being a ministerial
organ, and it brought on itself some ridicule by support-
ing in turn the Tory government under Adduigton,
Pitt's second administration between 1804 and 1806,
the short-lived administration of ' all the talents ' under
Lord Grenville, and the Tory revival under the Duke of
Portland m 1807, which led to Perceval's premiership
in 1809. Coleridge and his friends, however, had also
abandoned most of the opinions at which Byron mocked
when he said : —

All are not moralists, like Southey, when
He prated to the world of ' Pantisocraey ; '

Or Wordsworth, unexcised, unhired, who then
Seasoned his jiedlar poems with democracy ;

Or Coleridge, long, before his flighty pen
Let to ' The Morning Post ' its ai'istocracy ; '

and Coleridge, therefore, had no compunctions about
off"ering to write again for his old friend.

Coleridge had been in Malta and elsewhere — being,
it was alleged, himted after and nearly caught by Bona-
parte, who had not forgiven him for his articles in ' The
Morning Post ' — before the autumn of 1806, when he

' Don Juan, canto iii. stanza 93.

310 DANIEL STUART'S "WRITERS ch. x.

found himself in London without a home. He applied
to Stuart, ' as his best friend,' and, though Stuart did
not see his way to give him employment, he provided
him with a lodging, such as it was, on the upper floor
of the ' Courier ' printing ofl&ce, in the Strand, with a
Mrs. Bainbridge, who lived on the basement, to wait
upon him. ' There,' says De Quincey, 'did I often see the
philosopher, with the most lugubrious of faces, invoking
with all his might this uncouth name of " Bainbridge,"
each syllable of which he intoned with long-drawn
emphasis, in order to overpower the hostile hubbub
coming down from the creaking press and the roar
from the Strand, which entered at all the fi'ont windows.
" Mistress Bainbridge ; I say, Mistress Bainbridge," was
the perpetual cry.' If this asylum was not much to be
grateful for, Coleridge was glad to accept other help
from Stuart — loans of money, assistance in printing^
' The Friend,' and so forth. In December 1809 and
January 1810 'The Courier' contained eight vigorous
letters on Spanish affairs, wliich Stuart says that Cole-
ridge wrote for him ' rather as some return to me for
the sums I had expended on his account than on my
solicitation." But this was all the work he did for
Stuart between the ages of thirty and thirty- nine — a
fact worth remembering, in contradiction of a statement
afterwards made by misinformed friends of Coleridge,
to the effect that he had wasted his ' prime and man-
hood ' in making the success of ' The Mornmg Post *
and ' The Courier.'

Stuart would have put more work in Coleridge's
way, he says, but ' Mr. Street, who was editor and half
proprietor of " The Courier," never thought so highly of
Coleridge's writings as I did, and whenever I proposed
an engagement for Coleridge, Street received my sug-

' Oentleman's Magazine, May 1838, p. 491.

1809-1811. COLEBIDGE'S WORK FOR ' THE COURIER ' 311

gestion coldly.' At length, in April 1811, Stuart
received a pitiful letter from the broken-down philo-
sopher. ' If only I can procure any regular situation
which might employ me and my pen from nine to two,
five or even six days in a week,' wrote Coleridge, it
would be a regeneration for him. He offered to come
from Hammersmith to the ' Courier ' office every day,
if Stuart would let him, 'to read over the morning
papers, &c., and to point out whatever seemed valuable
to Mr. Street, so that I might occasionally write the
leading paragraph when he might wish to go into the
city, or to the public offices ; and besides this, I could
carry on a series of articles, a column and a half or
two columns each, independent of small paragraphs,
poems, &c., as would till whatever room there was in
" The Courier " whenever there was room.' ' Give me
a month's trial,' he begged.^

The month's trial, and more, was given to him; but
evidently only at Stuart's instigation, and with but
sullen assent fi'om Street. ' An engagement was formed
with Coleridge,' Stuart recorded, ' who attended punc-
tually and wrote every forenoon during some weeks in
the spring, and complained to me repeatedly that his
writings were not inserted. I told him to have patience;
that at present the paper was so fiUed with debates and
advertisements there was no room ; but that when parlia-
ment rose there would be abundant space to enable him
to compensate as well for his present as for his future
salary. When parliament rose Coleridge disappeared. I
expected this. In short, Coleridge never would write
anything that was required of him instantly, as for a
daily newspaper. The sense of compulsion disarmed
him — laid him prostrate.' ^ Those last sentences were
ungracious and inaccurate. Coleridge, writing his first

■ Gentlevian's Magaxine, June 1838, p. 584. ' Ibid., p. 580.

312 DAJS^EL STUART'S WRITERS ch. x.

article for ' Tlie Courier ' under this engagement on
April 19, 1811, wrote thirteen in May, nine in June,
eight in July, four in August, and eleven in September,
forty-six in the course of five months ; ^ besides all the
rejected articles and all the hack-work. But his posi-
tion was very irksome to him. In a letter to Stuart,
dated June 4, after he had been six weeks in harness,
he besought Stuart, if Street did not want hun any
longer, to put him ' in the way of some other paper,
the prmciples of wloich are sufficiently in accordance
with my own.' ' For while cabbage- stalks rot m dung-
hills,' he added, ' I will never write what, or for what,
I do not think right. All that prudence can justify
is not to write what at certain times one may yet
think.' 2

These summer months of 1811 were nearly the most
melancholy period in the whole of Coleridge's not too
happy life. He complained that, in order to reach the
Strand from Hammersmith by nine in the morning, he
had to catch the coach at twenty minutes past seven,
that the coach hire cost him eighteen shillmgs a week,
unless he saved half by walking home in the evening,
and that this amount he could ill spare out of his small
earnings. He had frequently to forestall his weekly
salary by borrowing a few pounds at a time from the
door-keeper or cashier of ' The Courier,' and he resented
the indignities to which he was exposed, but most of
which, it would seem, he brought on himself. Though
at startmg he declared that he would gladly do any hack
work that was required of him, and though we may well
believe that he honestly intended to make himself useful

' Essays on his oimi Times, vols. ii. and iii.

" Gentleman's Magazine, June 1838, p. 586. In July 1811, Henry
Crabb Robinson says (Diary, vol. i. p. 177), Coleridge asked him to use
influence with Walter to get him employed as leader-writer on The Times,
but Walter declined the offer.

1811. COLERIDGE AND PETER STREET dlo

in any way prescribed by Jais employers, he was mentally
and physically unfit for the task. He could not write
in a hurry or to order. What he did write was probably
better worth reading than anything that Street could
put in its place ; and perhaps had Stuart, who under-
stood and respected him, been editor of ' The Courier '
at that time, it would all have been used with great
a,d vantage to the paper. But there was no sympathy
between him and Street, who was narrow-minded and
crotchety, only a good man of business in so far as he
contrived to make ' The Courier ' a good paying pro-
perty and a fairly respectable ministerial organ. It was
not possible for these two to get on well together, and
Coleridge threw up his engagement on ' The Courier ' in
September 1811. In the autumn of 1814 he addressed
to it six forcible letters, signed with his own name,
about Enghsh misgovemment in Ireland ; but his
memorable ex^jerimentmg in journalism had practically
ended three years before.^

Though he quarrelled with Street, Coleridge acquitted
Stuart of blame for the hardships he complained of during
his employment on ' The Courier.' Stuart afterwards
reckoned up that he had paid Coleridge about 700/. for
work that cannot have occupied, in fragments spread
over twelve years, and chiefly in two periods of three
and five months respectively, more than a year of his
time ui all ; this money being in addition to numerous
loans, which were equivalent to gifts, and other services.
His friendship to Coleridge lasted through life, and
Coleridge wrote to him as late as 1816 : ' You are the
only human being of whom I can say, with severe truth,
that I never conversed with you for an hour without

' About 1814 or later, it is said, Coleridge wrote a series of newspaper
articles on the condition of factory children ; but I have been unable to
trace them.

314 DANIEL STUART'S WRITERS ch. x.

remarkable instruction ; and with the same simplicity I
dare afiirm my belief that my greater knowledge of man
has been useful to you, though, from the nature of thmgs
not so useful as your knowledge of men has been to me.'^
When writing his 'Biographia Literaria,' before that
date, however, Coleridge, exaggerating the extent of
his work on ' The Morning Post ' and ' The Courier,' as-
he might easily have done without intentional untruth
or inordmate vanity, made some remarks which were
unjust to Stuart. Though these were published in 1817,
Stuart good-naturedly abstained from expostulating
with him, or at any rate from publicly contradict-
ing him during his lifetime. But after Coleridge's
death, in 1834, his injudicious biographer, James
Gillman, repeated and added to the erroneous state-
ments, and this provoked an indignant remonstrance
and defence of himself by Stuart ui ' The Gentleman's
Magazme ' for 1838. Unfortunately, the admirers of
Coleridge have chosen to accept his and his friend's
blunders without Stuart's corrections.

Of Coleridge's friends, who had contributed with him
to ' The Morning Post,' Wordsworth appears to have
been the only one who also contributed to ' The Courier.''
In anticipation of its appearance as a separate pamphlet,
Wordsworth sent to Stuart's and Street's paper a series
of extracts from his eloquent condemnation of the con-
vention of Cintra in 1808 : ' but this he did,' said Stuart,,
'to assist Coleridge,'^ who probably received payment
for the articles. Of the other contributors to ' The
Courier ' m these years and afterwards, we know little,
and there is nothing especially worthy of record. Though
almost — if not quite — the most j)rosperous newspaper
then published, ' The Courier ' had less literary value
than some of its rivals.

' Gentleman'' s Magazine, June 1838, p. 588. ' Ibid., p. 580.

315

CHAPTER XL

ANTI-JACOBINS AND EErOEMERS.

1797—1815.

The disastrous and on every ground deplorable wars,
with France in which England was engaged, with one
brief intermission, from 1793 tiU 1815, served no good
purpose by teaching the lesson, which so few chose to
learn, that all such crusading is mischievous and in-
excusable ; and its effects on the political, social, and
financial condition of England itself were in no way
compensated for by the fact that the lesson was in this
respect somewhat better learnt. Journalism gained
much, however, and even the hardships endured by
many newspaper managers and writers had in the long
run very beneficial results.

Before the French Revolution actually began, the
causes that led to it were influencing Enghsh opinion ;
and, besides the widespread sympathy that thoughtful
Enghshmen felt for the victims of Bourbon oppression
and of the evils incident to the degraded feudahsm by
which the oppression was rendered possible, Rousseau,
Voltaire, and other pioneers of the Revolution had
actual followers in our own country as well as in France.
Socialism, republicanism, what its opponents called
atheism, and other heresies sprang up ; and though
they showed themselves in pamphlets and poems, at
meetings of democratic associations, and in the private

316 ANTI- JACOBINS AND KEFOEMERS ch. xi.

talk of men who shrank from saying openly what they
thought, before there was much evidence of them in
newspapers — for the newspapers, bemg high-priced,
still circulated but little among the poor, and were
never written specially for them — the newspapers were
affected. Coleridge and his friends were only to a small
extent disciples of Rousseau, and they soon abandoned
that ' pantisocracy ' with which they amused themselves
for a time ; but when Coleridge and his friends pro-
pounded their mild Radicalism in ' The Morning Post '
and other papers, they were sneered at and denounced
as Jacobins, and it was mvain that they repudiated the
title.

What was understood by Jacobinism in his day we
may gather from one of Coleridge's admirable articles
in ' The Morning Post,' which, entitled ' Once a Jacobin
always a Jacobin,' discussed ' this charitable adage at
one time fashionable in the ministerial circles.'

' The base venal creatures, and the blind and furious
bigots, of the late ministry,' he wrote in 1802, ' com-
prehended under that word all who, from whatever
cause, opposed the late war and the late ministry, and
whom they hate for this opposition -nith such mortal
hatred as is usual with bigots alarmed and detected
culprits. " Once a Jacobin always a Jacobm," signifies
no more in the minds of these men than " Such a one is
a man whom I shall never cease td hate." With other
men, honest and less violent anti- Jacobins, the word
imphes a man whose affections have been warmly and
deeply interested in the cause of general freedom, who
has hoped all good and honourable things both of and
for mankmd. In this sense of the word Jacobin, the
adage would affirm that no man can ever become
-altogether an apostate to liberty who has at any time
been sincerely and fervently attached to it. His hopes

1802. COLEEIDGE ON JACOBINISM 317

will burn like the Greek fire, hard to be extinguished
and easily rekmdled. Even when he despairs of the
cause, he will yet wish that it had been successful ; and
even when private interests have warped his public
character, his convictions will remain, and his wishes
often rise up in rebellion against his outward actions
and pubUc avowals. Thus interpreted, the assertion
" Once a Jacobin always a Jacobin " is so favourable a
representation of human nature that we are wilhng —
too willing, perhaps — to admit it even without proof.
There is yet a third class of anti-Jacobins, and of this
class we profess ourselves to be, who use the word
Jacobiu as they use the word Whig, and both words
only for want of a -better, who confess that Jacobin is
too often a word of vague abuse, but beheve that there
are certain definite ideas, hitherto not expressed in any
single word, which may be attached to this word, and
who in consequence uniformly use the word Jacobin
with certain definite ideas attached to it — those ideas
and no other.

' A Jacobin, in our sense of the terra, is one who
believes, and is disposed to act on the belief, that aU. or
the greater part of the happiness or misery, virtue or
vice, of mankind depends on forms of government ;
who admits no form of government as either good or
rightful which does not flow directly and formally from
the persons governed ; who — considering life, health,
moral and intellectual improvement, and liberty both of
person and conscience, as blessings which govenxments
are bound as far as possible to mcrease and secure to
every inhabitant, whether he has or has not any fixed
property, and moreover as blessings of infinitely greater
value to each individual than the preservation of property
can be to any hidividual — does consequently and con-
sistently hold that every inhabitant who has attained

318 ANTI- JACOBINS AND REFORMERS ch. xi.

the age of reason has a natural and inalienable right to
an equal share in the choice of the governors. In other
words, the Jacobins affirm that no legislature can be
rightful or good which did not proceed from universal
suffrage. In the power and under the control of a
legislature so chosen he places all and everything, with
the exception of the natural rights of the man and the
means appointed for the preservation and exercise of
these rights, by a direct vote of the nation itself — that
is to say, by a constitution. Finally, the Jacobin deems
it both justifiable and expedient to effect these requisite
changes in faulty governments by absolute revolutions,
and considers no violences as properly rebellious or
criminal which are the means of giving to a nation the
power of declaring and enforcing its sovereign will. In
brief, therefore, a Jacobin's creed is this :

1, A government is the organ by which form and publicity are given
to the sovereign will of the people, and by which that will is enforced and
exercised. 2. A government is likewise the instrument and means of
purifying and regulating the national will by its public discussions, and
by direct institutions for the comfort and instruction of the people.
3. Every native of a country has an equal right to that quantity of property
which is necessary for the sustenance of his life and health. 4. All property
beyond this, not being itself a right, can confer no right. Superior wis-
dom, with superior virtue, wovild indeed confer a right of superior power.
But who is to decide on the possession ? Not the person himself who
makes the claim ; and, if the people, then the right is given and not
inherent. Votes, therefore, cannot be xoeighed in this way, and they
mud not be weighed in any other way. Nothing, therefore, remains
possible but that they must be nnmhered. No form of electing represen-
tatives is rightful but that of universal suffrage. Every individual has
a right to elect, and a capability of being elected. 5. The legislature
has an absolute power over all other property but that of Article 3, unless
the people shall have declared otherwise in the constitution. 6. All
governments not constituted on these principles are unjust governments.
V. The people have a right to overturn them in whatever way it is possible ;
and any means necessary to this end become ipso facto right means. 8. It
is the right and duty of each individual living under that government,
as far as in him lies, to impel and enable the people to exercise these
rights.

1802. COLERIDGE ON JACOBINISM 319

' The man who subscribes to all these articles,'
Coleridge poiated out, ' is a complete Jacobin ; to many
but not all of them, a semi- Jacobin ; and the man who
subscribes to any one article (excepting the second,
which the Jacobin professes only in common with every
other political sect not directly an advocate of despotism)
may fairly be said to have a shade of Jacobinism in his
character. If we are not greatly deceived, we could
point out more than one or two celebrated anti-Jacobias
who are not shghtly infected with some of the worst
symptoms of the madness agaiast which they are raving,
and one or two acts of parliament which are justifiable
only upon Jacobin principles.

' These,' Coleridge went on to say, ' are the ideas
which we attach to the word Jacobin, and no other
siugle word expresses them. Not republican : Milton
was a pure republican, yet his notions of government
were highly aristocratic ; Brutus was a republican, but
he perished in consequence of having killed the Jacobin
Csesar. Neither does demagogue express that which
we have detailed ; nor yet democrat. The former word
implies simply a mode of conduct, and has no reference
to priaciples ; and the latter does of necessity convey
no more than that a man prefers in any country a form
of government without monarchy or aristocracy, which
ia any country he may do and yet be no Jacobia, and
which in some countries he can do without any im-
peachment of good sense or honesty. Whoever builds
a government on personal and natural rights is, so far,
a Jacobia. Whoever builds on social rights — that is,
hereditary rank, property, and long prescription — is an
anti- Jacobin, even though he should nevertheless be a
republican, or even a democrat.' ^

It will be seen that in these sentences Coleridge

' Coleridge, Essays on his own Times, vol. ii, pp. 542-548.

320 ANTI-JACOBINS AND REFORMERS ch. xi.

very justly and pithily summed up, and criticised while
he epitomised, the views pat forward by Rousseau and
other keen- eyed and visionary prophets and pioneers of
the great modern revolution, and clumsily, faultily, and
in some respects falsely interpreted by the Frenchmen
who, in the latter years of the eighteenth century,
undertook to turn theory into practice, and, in so
doing, committed many blunders and worse than blun-
ders. The problems there raised have not yet been
solved either by tlieorists or by practical men ; and we
need not wonder that the Tories of George III.'s reign
were startled and alarmed by the crude presentment of
them by men who found it easier in France to overturn
the institutions of monarchy and aristocracy than to
establish republican institutions in lieu. The Tories
are to be blamed, not for being frightened, but for
allowing their fright to drive them into courses that
greatly aggravated the dangers they dreaded.

When George III. opened parliament in December
1792, he declared that ' the destruction of our happy
constitution and the subversion of all order and govern-
ment were being compassed by incendiaries and preach-
ers of sedition, who were in league with French revolu-
tionists ' ; and, though Fox boldly described this language
as ' an intolerable calumny upon the people of Great
Britain,' both houses of parliament endorsed the royal
view, and approved a proclamation which had been
issued authorising the militia to deal summarily with
the promoters of tumult and rebellion, who were said
to be plentiful. The foolish action of the government
increased, if it did not wholly create, the danger it pre-
tended to be m fear of, and the numerous prosecutions
that ensued, resulting in long imprisonment in many
cases and in hangmg in a few, did all that could be
done to make small perils great, and to remind many,

1797. 'THE ANTI- JACOBIN ' 321

who would otherwise have submitted meekly to the
rulers placed over them, that a change must be brought
about.

That was how matters stood when the quarrel was
brought boldly into the field of journalism by the start-
ing, on November 20, 1797, of 'The Anti- Jacobin, or
Weekly Exammer.' This very clever little paper was
projected by George Caixning and the energetic group
of young politicians and scholars who, as disciples of
Pitt, clamoui'ed for more violent measures than Pitt
himself proposed. Canning, now seven-and-twenty,
had lately been made under secretary for foreign
affairs, with Lord Grenville as his chief With him
were associated Hookham Frere, George Ellis, Banks
Jenkinson (afterwards Earl of Liverpool), Lord Mor-
peth (afterwards Earl of Carlisle), Baron Macdonald,
and other talented members of their group ; Pitt hun-
self giving an occasional article, and William Gifford,
who was in his fortieth year, and already famous as
the author of ' The Baviad ' and ' The Maeviad,' being
appointed editor.

' It may be thought a narrow and illiberal distinc-
tion,' Canning wrote in the preliminary amiouncement,
full of biting irony, ' but we avow ourselves to be
partial to the comitry in which we live, notwithstanding
the daily panegyrics which we read and hear on the
superior ^drtues and endowments of its rival and hostile
neighbours. We do not dissemble that we reverence
law, we acknowledge usage, we look upon prescription
without hatred or horror, and we do not think these or
any of them less safe guides for the moral actions of
men than that new and liberal system of ethics whose
operation is not to bind but to loosen the bands of
social order, whose doctrine is formed not on a system
of reciprocal duties, but on the supposition of indi-

VOL. I. Y

322 ANTI-JACOBINS AND REFORMERS ch. xi.

vidual, independent, and unconnected rights, which
teaches that all men are pretty equally honest, but that
some have different notions of honesty from others, and
that the most received notions are for the greater part
the most faulty.' ' Of Jacobinism in all its shapes, and
in all its degrees, political and moral, public and pri-
vate, whether as it openly threatens the subversion of
states or gradually saps the foundations of domestic
happiness, we are the avowed, determined, irreconcilable
enemies,' Canning further declared ; and accordingly
they proposed to give from week to week in ' The Anti-
Jacobui' not only a record of hnportant events and
reflections thereon, but also — what would be the most
important, and perhaps the largest part of the paper —
' a contradiction and confutation of the falsehoods and
misrepresentations concerning those events, their causes
and their consequences, which may be found in the
papers devoted to the cause of sedition and irreligion,
to the pay or principles of France.' By this means the
wickedness of the Jacobin press would be exposed, and
its pernicious intentions would be made productive of
good ; for ' every week of misrepresentation will be
followed by its weekly comment, and, with this correc-
tion faithfully administered, the longest course of
"Morning Chronicles" or "Morning Posts," of " Stars "
or " Couriers," may become not only innocent but
beneficial.' ^

' The Anti- Jacobin ' only ran through thirty-four
numbers, being dropped, as had from the first been
mtended, at the close of the parliamentary session, on
July 9, 1798 -/^ but while it lasted it was a powerful

' This, it will be remembered, was written before Tlie Courier became a
supporter of the government, and even before Coleridge had begun to
write for The Monuny Post.

° Mr. Edmonds, in the preface to his edition of Poetry of the Anti-
Jacobin, says : ' So alarmed became Mr. Wilberforce and others of the

1797-1798. 'THE ANTI-JACOBIN' 323

medium in the hands of its skilful writers for attacking
the Whigs as well as the more thoroughgoing sympa-
thisers with the French revolutionists. Part of its
pohcy, indeed, was to include in one category all who
were not Tories of Pitt's, or rather of Canning's, school,
and to make Fox and Erskine, Sheridan and Mackintosh,
appear as disloyal and obnoxious as tlorne Tooke or
Paine, John Frost or Thelwall. Gifford wrote most, if
not all, of the comments on statements in the other
papers, which were classified, under three heads, as
' Hes — downright and unblushing falsehoods,' ' misre-
presentations,' and ' mistakes ' ; and the various con-
tributors supplied longer articles, one or more each
week, on the principal questions of the hour. The
chief attraction of ' The Anti- Jacobin,' however, was its
poetical section, not announced in the prospectus.
Canning and Hookham Frere were smart satirists, and
the brilliant verses, more witty than generous, which
they and their colleagues supplied found plenty of
readers, and delighted all who were not stung by them.
Canmng, helped by Frere, led off in the first
number with a parody of one of Southey's poems ;
and the second number, still making game of Southey,
contained the famous joke in sapphics, ' The Friend of
Humanity and the Needy Knife-grinder,' which caused
a great sensation at the time of its publication, though
its humour now seems somewhat coarse and strained.
Less familiar, but perhaps the best poem in the series,
and certainly the longest and most carefully prepared,
as all the poets on the staff of ' The Anti- Jacobin ' had
a hand in writing it, was ' New Morality,' which filled

more moderate supporters of the ministers at the boldness of the language
employed, that Mr. Pitt was induced to interfere, and The Anti-Jacobin
ceased to exist.' There is no indication, however, that it was ever meant
to be more than an ephemeral publication.

T 2

324 ANTI- JACOBINS AND REFORMERS ce. xi.

more than half of the last number. It was a parting
thrust at the whole conglomeration of Radicals and
reformers, running through nearly five hundred lines.
In it Frere commenced by saying : —

From mental mists to purge a nation's eyes,

To animate the weak, unite the wise,

To trace the deep infection that pervades

The crowded town, and taints the rural shades,

To mark how wide extends the mighty waste

O'er the fair realms of science, learning, taste,

To drive and scatter all the brood of lies.

And chase the varying falsehood as it flies.

The long arrears of ridicule to pay.

To drag reluctant dulness back to day.

Much yet remains. To you these themes belong.

Ye favoured sons of virtue and of song !

Say, is the field too narrow ? are the times

Barren of folly, and devoid of crimes ?

Canning wrote most of the poem, including these
couplets : —

Sweet child of sickly Fancy ! her of yore

From her loved France Rousseau to exile bore ;

And, while midst lakes and mountains wild he ran.

Full of himself, and shunned the haunts of man.

Taught her o'er each lone vale and Alpine steep

To lisp the story of his wrongs and weep ;

Taught her to cherish still, in either eye.

Of tender tears a plentiful supply.

And pour them in the brooks that babbled by ;

Taught by nice scale to mete her feelings strong,

False by degrees, and exquisitely wrong —

For the crushed beetle ^rsi, the widow'd dove.

And all the warbled sorrows of the grove ;

Next for poor suffering guilt ; and last of all

For parents, friends, a king and country's fall.

Mark her fair votaries, prodigal of grief,

With cureless pangs, and woes that mock relief.

Droop in soft sorrow o'er a faded flower.

O'er a dead jackass pour the pearly shower ;

But hear unmoved of Loire's ensanguined flood,

Choked up with slain— of Lyons drenched with blood—

Of crimes that blot the age, the world, with shame ;

Foul crimes, but sicklied o'er with freedom's name.

1798. 'THE ANTI-JACOBIN' 325

And, after more of this one-sided truth,

Such is the liberal justice which presides

In these our days, and modern patriots guides —

Justice, whose blood-stained book one sole decree,

One statute, fills, ' The People shall be Free ! '

Free ! By what means ? By folly, madness, guilt.

By boundless rapine, blood in oceans spilt,

By confiscation, in whose sweeping toils

The poor man's pittance with the rich man's spoils,

Mixed in one common mass, are swept away

To glut the short-lived t3T:ant of the day !

Canning, Frere, and Ellis combiaed their skill to pro-
duce this verse : —

O nurse of crimes and fashions ! which in vain

Our colder servile spirits would attain,

How do we ape thee, France ! but, blundering still,

Disgrace the pattern by our want of skill.

How do we ape thee, France ! nor claim alone

Thy arts, thy tastes, thy morals, for our own,

But to thy worthies render homage due.

Their ' hairbreadth 'scapes ' with anxious interest view —

Statesmen and heroines whom this age adores.

Though plainer times would call them rogues and vrhores.

The cruellest portion of this cruel poem was that iu
which reformers and critics of all grades were ima-
giaed as welcoming the arrival ia England, at the
head of an army of atheists and supported by an army
of soldiers, of Louis Marie de la Kevelliere de Lepeaux,
the then famous author of the National Convention's
announcement that ' the French nation would give
assistance to ail oppressed people who wished to
recover their liberty.'

Rejoiced, our clubs shall greet him, and install
The holy hunchback in thy dome, St. Paul !
While countless votaries, thronging in his train.
Wave their red caps, and hymn this jocund strain:

' " Couriers " and "Stars," sedition's evening host.
Thou " Morning Chronicle," and "Morning Post,"

326 ANTI-JAOOBINS AND EEFORMEES oh. xi.

Whether ye make the Rights of Man your theme,
Your coiintry libel, and your God blaspheme.
Or dirt on private worth and virtue throw, ,
Still, blasphemous or blackguard, praise L^peaux !

' And ye five other wandering bards, that move
In sweet accord of harmony and love,
Coleridge and Soutliey, Lloyd and Lamb and Co.,
Tune all your mystic harps to praise L^peaux !

' Priestley and Wakefield, humble, holy men.
Give praises to his name with tongue and pen !
Thelwall, and ye that lecture as ye go,
And for your pains get pelted, praise Ldpeaux !

' Praise him, each Jacobin, or fool, or knave,

And your cropped heads in sign of worship wave !

All creeping creatures, venomous and low,

Paine, Williams, Godwin, Holcroft, praise L^peaux ! ' ^

' The Anti- Jacobin,' with all its cleverness, and es-
pecially by reason of that cleverness, was a mischievous
and malicious attempt to misrepresent the views and
actions of the opponents of Pitt's government, and all
the more objectionable because a member of the govern-
ment was its leading spirit. Canning's newspaper war
against Whigs and Radicals, however, was legitimate
in comparison with the policy pursued by Pitt and his
associates in forcible and vindictive use of existing

' Though The Anti-Jacobin made its last appearance on July 9, 1798,
there was started a few days before a monthly Anti-Jacobin JReview and
Magazine of the same politics, but much less brilliant, and more ponder^
ous. Strange to say, it also was edited by a Gifford, or one who so called
himself. John Richard Green was a bold and versatile adventurer, who,
having to fly from his creditors in 1782, returned from France in 1788
as John Gifford, and was connected with several newspapers, besides
editing The Anti-Jaj:obin Mevieiv. Befriended in many ways by Pitt, he
wrote a four-volume pamphlet, styled Tlie Life of William. Pitt, after his
patron's death. James Mill, the friend and associate of Jeremy Bentham,
as we shall see in a later chapter, was glad to earn money in his struggling
days, by writing non-political articles for The Anti-Jacobin Meview.
William Gifford, it is hardly necessary to state, after editing Ben Jonson's
works, and other useful occupations, became the first editor of The
Qjiarterly Review in 1809.

1708. PITT'S NEWSPAPER ACT 327

laws, and manufacture of fresh law, in the hope of
putting down the sedition that they imagined and in-
vented. Every year had its batch of press prosecutions,
generally on flimsy charges, and with the undisguised
object of punishing obnoxious printers, publishers, and
writers, not so much for the particular offences alleged
against them as for their boldness in criticismg the pro-
ceedings of the ministry and its agents.

It was in order to increase the opportunities for this
persecution that Pitt introduced his Newspaper Act in
April 1798, which, making some regulations that have
since been found harmless if not useful as regards the
registration of propiietors, and so forth, did much more
than that. It was a bill ' for preventing the mischief
arismg from newspapers being printed and published
by persons unknown, and for regulating them in other
respects ' ; and the ' other respects ' were sufficiently
various and tyrannical. It imposed heavy penalties on
all in whose possession unstamped, including foreign,
newspapers were found, or who sent them out of the
country, and one of its clauses prescribed that ' every
person who during the present war shall send any
newspaper into any country not in amity with his
majesty shall forfeit 500Z.' ^

The particular excuse for that act was the publica-
tion in ' The Courier ' of a paragraph stating that some
French prisoners in Liverpool had been cruely treated
by the authorities, and the inability of the government
to find out either who was the author of the ' libel ' or
who was the responsible proprietor of the paper, so that
it was prevented from bringing an action against any-
,one ; and this although, in the opinion of the ministers,
' The Courier ' was a ' scandalous outrage on law,
morality, religion, and justice — the echo of France,

1 37 George III., cap. 78.

328 ANTI-JAUOBINS AND EEFORMERS ch. xi.

which propagated with unyielding industry the
monstrous misrepresentations of the Frencli directory
and their detestable principles.' Sheridan and others
denounced the bill. Tierney declared that ' he fore-
saw what would be its consequences to the liberty of
the press, the clog it would create to talent and litera-
ture, the restraint it would be to political freedom.'
Lord William Russell condemned it as ' an insidious
blow to the liberty of the press.' Sir William Pulteney
urged that ' the liberty of the press was of such a
sacred nature that we ought to suffer many inconveni-
ences rather than check its influence in such a manner
as to endanger our liberties, for without the liberty of
the press the freedom of this country would be a mere
shadow.' Sir Francis Burdett reminded Pitt that his
father, the Earl of Chatham, when he was urged to
introduce a similar bill in order to protect himself from
the calumnies with which he was assailed, had replied
that ' the press, like the air, is a chartered libertine ' ;
and in his rough style of scorn suggested that the bill
was the most effectual means that could be devised by
a ' tyrannically disposed prince, supported by an un-
scrupulous, profligate minister, backed by a notoriously
corrupt parliament,' to confirm their ' triple tyranny.' ^
But the bill was passed, and though it was followed b}''
a long series of press prosecutions, which it rendered
possible, it and those prosecutions had important re-
sults in educating a Radical party bold enough to
brave prosecution till it was strong enough to pre-
vent it.

Notable illustration of the way in which Tory per-
secution conA^erted even weak-minded and scarcely
honest men into sturdy Radicals is furnished by the
career of William Cobbett. Born in 1762, Cobbett

' Farliamcntanj History, vol. xxxiii. pp. 1418-1482.

1800. WILLIAM COBBETT AND 'THE PORCUPINE' 329

had had varied experience as a farmer's boy, a lawyer's
drudge, and a private soldier, before he went to
America, and there, prospering as a bookseller, made
himself notorious as the writer of violent Tory pamph-
lets, under the pseudonym of Peter Porcupme. His
opinions, and the terms in which he uttered them, gave
great offence to his neighbours in Philadelphia, and,
beuig convicted of a libel and ordered to pay a fine of
5,000 dollars, he avoided payment by running away.
He returned to England after eight years' absence, and
had then money and influence enough to start a daily
paper, ' The Porcupine,' the first number of which
appeared on November 2-i, 1800, which was intended
to be as violent, if not as brilliant, a champion of
Toryism as ' The Anti- Jacobin ' had been,

Cobbett claimed that what he had seen and endured
in the United States specially qualified him to instruct
and warn his countrymen of the dangers they ran from
following French guidance, and sanctioning any at-
tempts at altering the political and social constitution
of England. ' Those who want experience of the con-
sequences,' he said in the prospectus of ' The Porcupine,'
' may, for aught I know, be excused for connivmg at
these attempts ; but for me, who have seen acts passed
by a republican legislature more fraudulent than for-
gery or coining — for me, who have seen republican
officers of state offering their country for sale for a few
thousand dollars — for me, who have seen republican
judges become felons, and felons become repubhcan
judges — for me to hold my hands and tamely to listen
to the insolent eulogists of republican governments and
rulers, would be a shameful abandonment of principle,
a dastardly desertion of duty.' ' The intrigues of the
French, the servile, the insidious, the insinuating
French,' he declared, ' shall be an object of my constant

330 ANTI- JACOBINS AND REFORMERS CH. xi.

attention. Whether at war or at peace with us, they
still dread the power, envy the happiness, and thirst for
the ruin of England. Collectively and individually, the
whole and every one of them hate us. Had they the
means, they would exterminate us to the last man ;
they would snatch the crutch from our parents, the
cradle from our children, and our happy country itself
would they sink beneath those waves on which they
now flee from the thunder of our cannon. When we
shall sheathe the sword it is for our sovereign to say;
but while we retain one drop of true British blood in
our veins, we never shall shake hands with this perfi-
dious and sanguinary race, much less shall we make a
compromise with their monkey-like manners and tiger-
like pi'inciples.' There was much more loud talk of this
sort ; and Cobbett added, ' I feel an irresistible desire to
communicate to my countrymen the fruit of my expe-
rience, to show them the injurious and degrading conse-
quences of discontentment, disloyalty, and innovation,
to convince them that they are the freest as well as the
happiest of the human race, and above all, to warn them
against the arts of those ambitious and perfidious dema-
gogues who would willingly reduce them to a level with
the cheated slaves in the bearing of whose yoke I have
had the mortification to share.'

' The Porcupine,' projected in that temper, continued
to be a rowdy supporter of the Tory govei'nment, and
an insolent assailant of all who differed from it, during
more than a year. Windham, who lost his secretaryship -
at- war by Addington's displacement of Pitt as premier
in May 1801, stated in parHament that by one of its
articles the writer had merited a statue in gold. But
no minister proposed to reward Cobbett for his services
with either place or pension, and — as ' The Porcupine,*
though more forcibly written, was no more useful to the

1800-1802. ' COBBETT'S POLITICAL BEGISTER ' 331

government or acceptable to the public than ' The True
Briton,' which ever since the commencement of 1793
had been kept ahve by ministerial help in order to do
the same work — Cobbett found it expedient or necessary
in November 1801 to assign liis property in ' The Por-
cupine ' to the owner of ' The True Briton.' ^ These
two papers were amalgamated on January 1, 1802, and
on the 16th of the same month Cobbett started another
and a smaller paper, ' The Weekly Political Register,'
which, though not at first opposed to the Tories, was
much less energetic in its support of them.

It is only charitable to suppose that Gobbett's con-
victions, such as they were, were undergoing a change
at this time, but we may reasonably assume that they
would have been unchanged had he received from the
government the encouragement that he thought he de-
served. For not thus encouraging him the government
is certainly not to be blamed. It already had far too
many disreputable hangers-on in the newspaper world,
who only rendered it more obnoxious to sensible people
than it might otherwise have been, and there would
have been no wisdom in adding to the number. Cobbett
was a far abler man, however, than most of those who
were preferred to him, and the Addington administra-
tion made a serious mistake in converting him into an
enemy. His ' Pohtical Register ' soon became a for-
midable assailant of the party and policy that its editor
had hitherto supported, and the contemptuous indiffe-
rence with which, as a friend, he had been treated was
promptly followed by persecution that enabled him to

' Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, January 1802. In 1796 Lord
Kenyon had ruled that the description of I7ie True Briton, given in Tlie
Courier, as ' the most vulgar, ignorant, and scurrilous journal ever pub-
lished in Great Britain,' was only a fair comment and not punishable as
a libel. ^Espinasse, Reports of Cases at Nisi Prius, vol. i. p. 437.)

332 ANTI-JACOBINS AND EEFORMERS ch. xi.

be a far more formidable antagonist than the govern-
ment was prepared for.

' Cobbett's Eegister,' continued for more than thirty-
years, though after a time it assumed the form of an
annual publication, was from the first more of a political
magazine than a newspaper. It undertook to give, and
gave very skilfully, a concise record of events, and es-
pecially of the proceeduags in parliament. But each
weekly number contained at least one forcible leading
article or long letter, generally bearuig Cobbett's signa-
ture, in which he handled with his sledge-hammer pen
nearly every question of importance as it arose, and
constituted himself the censor of every party. Though
snubbed by the Tories, he claimed for some years longer
to be one of them, and, retaming all his old hatred of
the French, his earliest avowed quarrel with the autho-
rities resulted not from any inconsistency on his part,
but from a ministerial change of front.

After the peace of Amiens had been trumped up m
April 1802, it became the policy of the Addington
government to keep on good terms with Bonaparte, but
it was not able to restrain the abusive language that it
had hitherto encouraged m the press ; and there was
much angry correspondence on the subject between the
French directory and the English admmistration durmg
the ensumg months, rendered all the more embarrassing
because at this time there were a good many French
republicans in England, who had come over to escape
from and to denounce the new tyranny that was being
shaped out of the liberating forces they had set in mo-
tion, and because many English reformers to whom the
confusing term Jacobin had been applied were, for a
while and in this respect, in substantial agreement with
many of the Tories who loathed them. There were at
least two French papers published in London which

1802-1803. COBBETT AND THE JACOBESTS 333

made it their special business to attack the first consul —
' L'Ambigu,' edited by Jean Peltier, and ' Le Courrier
Franqais de Londres ' ; and about these the French am-
bassador made formal complaint in July, including in
his charges ' Cobbett and other writers who resemble
them.' The British government began by answering the
complamts in terms that would have been dignified if
they had been consistent. ' His majesty's government
neither can nor will, in consequence of any menace from
a foreign power,' wrote Lord Hawkesbury in August,
' make any concession which may be in the smallest
degree dangerous to the liberty of the press, as secured
by the constitution of this country ' ; and he refused to
take any action on Bonaparte's behalf against the ob-
noxious writers.^ The government afterwards yielded
so far, however, as to prosectite Peltier, who was brought
up for trial in February 1803 before Lord EKenborough,
with Spencer Perceval, the attorney-general, as his ac-
cuser, and Mackintosh to defend him. Mackintosh's
speech, which even Ellenborough declared to be ' elo-
quence almost unparalleled,' was a noble argument not
only in justification of Peltier, but also for the liberty of
the press in general,^ but it was unsuccessful. Peltier
was found guilty, though before the time came for the
deferred sentence to be passed, war had been renewed
between France and England, and he consequently
escaped punishment. It ultimately transpired that he
had actually been receiving pay from the Enghsh
o-ovemment for writing as he had done ; and his em-
ployment was continued till 1815, when, in explanation
of the grants made to him and other French journalists
in London, Lord Castlereagh averred that ' these grants
were made for public and not for private services, and

1 Parliamentary History, vol. xxxvi. pp. 1267-1295.
'' It is printed in Mackintosh's Miscellaneous Works.

334 ANTI- JACOBINS AND REFORMERS ch. xj.

for conveying instruction to the continent when no other
mode could be found.'

Cobbett's connection with Peltier's case, which here
■chiefly concerns us, was noteworthy as illustrating the
■difference between such ' libels ' as the government
tolerated, or only made a pretence of punishing, and
such others as it seriously resented. Though Cobbett
was as outspoken as Peltier in his condemnation of
Napoleon, he was not prosecuted for it ; but he was
attacked for interfering with English officials. In May
1804 he was tried for two offences : one of them the
insertion in his ' Register ' of two letters by an Irish
judge, ridiculing Lord Hardwicke, who was viceroy of
Ireland, as ' a very eminent sheep-feeder from Cam-
bridgeshire,' with ' a wooden head,' and Lord Chancellor
Redesdale as ' a very able and strong-built chancery
pleader from Lincoln's Inn ' ; the other using language
of his own in disparagement of the solicitor-general's
conduct of the proceedings against Robert Emmett for
inciting to rebellion. In both cases he was found guilty,
and he was fined 500Z.^

This persecution, however, instead of silencing him,
induced him to make his ' Register ' a fearless and vin-
dictive opponent of everything in the ministerial policy
which his somewhat fickle judgment disapproved. He
was never a thoroughgoing and comprehensive re-
former. He was always more anxious to appear as a
demagogue tban as a champion of democracy, and he
preferred to associate himself with Sir Francis Burdett,
' Orator ' Hunt, and agitators of that stamp, than with
the steady and persevering advocates of national pro-
gress, who insisted upon principle on the redress of
grievances and the systematic rooting out of the evils
' by which the country was afflicted. But he made

^ State Trials, vol. xxix. pp. 1, 54, 422.

1802-1809. FROM COBBETT TO THE HUNTS odO

himself formidable, and ' The Register ' was in his
hands a serviceable and powerful agency for the ex-
posure of abuses. That he was allowed during so many
years to carry on his violent and indiscrimmate guerilla
warfare against the several ministries that followed the
Addington government is somewhat suqDrising ; but
retribution fell upon him in 1809, when, for venturing
to protest against the flogging of some militiamen under
a guard of the German legion, and thus finding fault
at once both with the rules of military discipline and
with the employment of foreign mercenaries, he was
sent to prison for two years and fined 1,000^. ; Hansard,
the printer of ' The Register,' and two newsvendors,
being also imprisoned for shorter terms.

In the meanwhile worthier Radicals than Cobbett,
and a more important newspaper than ' The Political
Register,' were coming to the front. The starting of
' The Examiner ' by John and Leigh Hunt marks an
epoch in the history of journalism.

John Hunt, the second son of a clergyman who got
into some trouble because of the liberal opinions in
pohtics and religion which honest thought and intel-
ligent experience had forced upon him, was born about
1780, and started a printing business in Brydges Street,
Strand, while his younger brother, James Henry Leigh
Hunt, bom in 1784, was writing juvenile poems and
smart essays, in imitation of Goldsmith, and was trying
to learn law in the office of his eldest brother Stephen.
The law learning was abandoned when Leigh obtained
a clerkship in the War Office, but the writing of poems
and essays was continued and improved upon. Of the
poems a small volume was made and published when
the author was only seventeen, and some of the essays
appeared, before he was twenty, as the lucubrations of
' Mr. Town, junior. Critic and Censor General,' in ' The

336 ANTI- JACOBINS A.ND REFORMERS ch. xi.

Traveller,' the recently established evening paper, of
which Edward Quin was editor. " I offered them with
fear and trembling to Mr. Quin,' said Leigh, ' and was
astonished at the gaiety with which he accepted them.
What astonished me more was a perquisite of five or
six copies of the paper, which I enjoyed every Saturday
when my essays appeared, and with which I used to
reissue from Bolt Court in a state of transport. Luckily
the essays were little read ; they were not at all noticed
in public ; and I thus escaped the perils of another
premature laudation for my juvenility.' ^

These, however, were only ' a stop-gap,' as he said ;
as also were the theatrical criticisms that he wrote for
' The News,' a Sunday paper, which was started in
April 1805, and of which his brother John was during
two years and a half the printer and, apparently, the
editor. Young as he was, the new theatrical critic set
an example that astonished his rivals and pleased many
readers. ' We saw that independence in theatrical
criticism would be a great novelty. We announced it,
and nobody believed us ; we stuck to it, and the town
believed everything we said. To know an actor per-
sonally appeared to me a vice not to be thought of, and
I would as lief have taken poison as accept a ticket
from the theatres.' ^

' The Examiner ' was a speedy consequence of the
success that attended the first venture of the brothers
in newspaper work, and a bold attempt to apply to the
discussion of political and social afi"airs, in which their
interest grew with age, the same independence which
had appeared in Leigh Hunt's notices of the perfor-
mances of Mrs. Siddons, Harriet Mellon, Kemble
Liston, Munden, and other actors and actresses. The

' Autobiography of Leigh Sunt (revised edition, with an introduction
by his eldest son), p. 124. 2 jj^^^^ ^ j^3g_

1808. LEIGH HUNT AKD 'THE EXAMINER' 337

first number appeared on Sunday, January 3, 1808,
with John Hunt as printer and manager, and Leigh
Hunt, ia his twenty-fourth year, as editor, and the two
as joint-proprietors.

' The main objects of " The Examuier," ' said Leigh
Hunt, ' were to assist_jxu-pFed-iieiBg-^efo-rrir4n~paTiia? —
ment, liberality t)fopinion~lit general (especially free-
dom from supei'stition), and a fusion of literary taste
into aU subjects whatsoever. It began with being of
no party, but reform soon gave it one. It disclaimed
all knowledge of statistics, and the rest of its politics
were rather a senthnent and a matter of general traiu-
iag than founded on any particular political reflection.
It possessed, however, the benefit of a good deal of
reading. It never wanted examples out of history and
biography, or a kind of adornment from the spirit of
literature ; and it gradually drew to its perusal many
intelligent persons of both sexes, who would perhaps
never have attended to politics under other circum-
stances. ^ In the course of its warfare with the Tories
" The Examiner " was charged with Bonapartism, with
republicanism, with disaffection to church and state,
with conspiracy at the tables of Burdett and Cobbett ^
and Henry Hunt. Now Sir Francis, though he was
our hero, we never exchanged a word with j and Cobbett
and Henry Hunt (no relation of ours) we never beheld,
never so much as saw their faces. I was never even at
a public dinner, nor do I believe my brother was. We
had absolutely no views whatsoever but those of a
decent competence and of the public good ; and we
thought, I dare aflSrm, a great deal more of the latter
than of the former. Our competence we allowed too
much to shift for itself As for myself, what I thought
of more than either was the making of verses. I did
nothing for the greater part of the week but write

VOL. I. z

338 ANTI- JACOBINS AND REFOEIIERS ch. xi.

verses and read books. I tlien made a rush, at my
editorial duties, took a world of superfluous pains in
the writing, sat up late at night, and was a very trying
person to compositors and newsmen.' ^

During the first year of his editorship of ' The
Examiner ' Leigh Hunt's time was partly filled up by
his duties as a clerk in the War OflS.ce. He resigned
this post, however, in December 1808, in order that, not
being in the pay of the government, he might have
no compunction in attacking it whenever he thought
necessary ; ^ and, though he was soon afterwards to be
married, he considered that the success of the paper
warranted his thus surrendering a certain income.
' The paper gets on gloriously indeed,' he wrote to his
sweetheart in November. ' Our regular sale is now
2,200, and by Christmas or a few weeks after I have
little doubt we shall be 3,000 ; and what is best of all
we shall now keep it to ourselves. My brother told
me the other day that he had no doubt but we should
be getting eight or ten guineas apiece every week in a
year's time.' '

' The Examiner ' deserved to succeed, apart fi^om its
merits as a fearless advocate of political reform. As a
mere literary production it at once took rank above all
the other weekly periodicals, and contained such careful
and scholarly writing as only appeared occasionally,
when men like Coleridge and Mackintosh were the
authors, in the best of the daily papers. Leigli Hunt
was scarcely hypercritical when, in the preface to the
first year's volume of his journal, he complained of
' the ignorance and corruption ' of its contemporaries.

1 Autobiography, p. 172.

'' It is somewhat curious that, more than sixty years later, another
War Office clerk, not then aware that he was following in Leigh Hunt's
steps, also resigned his post in order to edit The Examiner.

' Correspondence of Leigh Hunt, vol. i. p. 40.

1808. 'THE EXAMINER' UNDER THE HUNTS 339

' The jarring spirit of past years,' he said, ' seemed to
have destroyed every pohtical refinement, both of
speaking and writing. Graceful persuasions forsook the
senate, wit and argument the press. The newspapers,
occupied with momentary rumour and invective, ap-
peared to have no leisure for anything becoming ; and,
as the sounds of speech are affected by a deranged
constitution, the whole pubhc voice grew vulgar as it
grew violent. People are now beginning to change
their tone in these matters ; but even now, when every
other species of literature has gained at least an elegant
mediocrity, the progress of periodical style has scarcely
reached correctness, and it is remarkable that those
papers which are the most politically corrupt are still
the most corrupt in everything else. It becomes a
public writer, therefore, to show the company his
intellect keeps, and to attempt a language worthy of
the sentiments he feels and the country for which he
writes.'

This rule was loyally observed in all the original
writing for which a liberal share of space was found in
'■ The Examiner,' and even in its careful digests of the
week's news. /■' Little miscellaneous sketches of character
and manners^ as Hunt said, ' were introduced as one
small method or habituating readers to general ideas of
the age ' ; and, theatrical criticism being a favourite
exercise with him, he made it a special feature, of ' The
Examiner,' this being, he remarked, ' a department
which none of the papers seem inclined to dispute with
a person fond of the subject, the daily ones for want of
independence, and the weekly for want of care.' ^ ' As

• ' I rememljer an instance of John Hunt's high spirit relating to his
paper,' says Cyras Redding. ' Jolin Kemble had given Tke Examiner a
free admission for two persons to the boxes. Leigh Hunt was the best
dramatic critic of the day. He saw it right to censure Kemble for his
performance of some part — I forget which — and Kemble remarked that,

z 2

340 ANTI-JAOOBINS AND REFORMERS ch. ii.

theatrical criticism,' lie added, ' is the liveliest part of a
newspaper, I have endeavoured to correct its usual
levity by treating it philosophically ; and as political
writing is the gravest subject, I have attempted to
give it a more general interest by handling it good-
humouredly.'-^

Among the ' little miscellaneous sketches ' that
Leigh Hunt pubhshed in ' The Examiner ' during its
first year were seven essays on Methodism and its
extravagances, then making some noise in the world,
and these were afterwards reissued in a small volume.^
To politics it paid less attention then than afterwards,
and the strengthening of this part of the paper was
due, perhaps, chiefly to the influence of his brother's
robuster though less literary mind. ' In politics, from
old family associations,' said Leigh, ' I soon got in-
terested as a man, though I never could love them as a
writer. It was against the grain that I was encouraged
to begin them, and against the grain that I ever after-
wards sat down to write, except when the subject was
of a very general description, and I could introduce
philosophy and the Idles lettres! ^ Before long, how-
ever, ' The Examiner ' and its editor were hotly en-
gaged in the political struggle then going on, and this
notwithstanding the studied moderation, not from
cowardice, but from conviction, of the language generally
used. The Hunts thought they could do better service
to the reforming movement, in which they took the

after sending such admissions, he should not have expected to be handled
so severely. John Hunt at once enclosed the admissions to which he
alluded, and stated that in future the admissions of the theatrical critic
should be paid for, and charged to the weekly expenses of the paper,
which should be placed on a footing of perfect independence.' — Fi/Cj/
Ytari Mecollections, vol. i. p. 277.

' Examiner, preface to the volume for 1808.

' An Attempt to show the Folly and Danger of Methodism, 1809.

^ Autobiography, p. 155.

1808. 'THE EXAMINEE' UNDEK THE HUNTS 341

keenest interest, by dignified remonstrance and argu-
ment than by joiuing in the noisier agitation led by
Cobbett, with whom they frequently expostulated, by
Burdett, whom, when they found that their early
admiration was misplaced, they nicknamed Sir Francis
Bourgeois, and by others. They shunned the society of
hotheaded agitators and of temporisiug statesmen ahke,
just as they avoided personal intercourse with theatrical
managers and actors. ' " The Examiner," so to speak,
hved quite alone,' said Leigh Hunt. ' It sought
nobody, and its principles had already become so well
understood that few sought it, and no one succeeded in
making its acquaintance.' ^ This independence saved it
from contamination, but not from persecution. A news-
paper that could not be bought, and whose managers
neither gave nor went to dinner parties, was only the
more likely to be hunted down on that account.

' The Examiner ' was not ten months old when, on
October 23, 1808, there appeared in it an article, eight
columns long, on ' Military Depravity,' commenting,
not for the first time, on the gross mismanagement of
the army under the Duke of York, whom it held
personally responsible for scandals that were notorious,
though few ventured to utter their complaints in public.
' The time has at length arrived,' it was said in ' The
Examiner,' ' when either the vices of one man must be
sacrificed to the military honour of the country, or the
military honour of the country must be sacrificed to
the vices of one man — an alternative truly monstrous
and deplorable.' That was strong language, and there
was more of it. The Hunts were promptly threatened
with an action for libel, and the proceedings dawdled on
for some time. They were discreetly abandoned, how-
ever, without appeal to a jury.*

' Autobiography, p. 200. ' Ibid., pp. 200, 201.

342 ANTI- JACOBINS AND EEFORMERS ch. xi.

The first serious attack on the paper was made a
year later. In anticipation of the disruption of the
Duke of Portland's administration, consequent on his
death, and the rearrangement of its more important
members ujider Perceval's premiership, Leigh Hunt
published on October 1, 1809, a smart article entitled
' Change of Ministry.' ' It is generally supposed,' he
wrote, 'that the mutilated administration, in spite of
its tenacity of life, cannot exist much longer ; and the
Foxites of course are beginning to rally round their
leaders in order to give it the coup de grdce} A more
respectable set of men they certainly are, with more
general information, more attentive to the encourage-
ment of intellect, and altogether a more enlightened
policy ; and if his majesty could be persuaded to enter
into their conciliatory views with regard to Ireland, a
most important and most necessary benefit would be
obtained for this country. The subject of Ireland,
next to the difiiculty of coalition, is no doubt the great
trouble in the election of his majesty's servants ; and it
is this, most probably, which has given rise to the talk
of a regency — a measure to which the court would
never resort while it felt a possibility of acting upon
its old principles. What a crowd of blessings rush
upon one's mind that might be bestowed upon the
country in the event of such a change ! Of all
monarchs, indeed, since the Revolution, the successor
of George III. will have the finest opportunity of be-
coming nobly popular.' The last two sentences of that
mild paragraph were quoted approvingly by Perry in
' The Morning Chronicle ' of October 2. The allusion

1 It will be remembered that Fox had died in 1806, and that his
followers were now scheming more than ever to eflfeot an alliance with
the Prince of Wales, shortly to be made prince regent on account of his
father's madness.

1809-1810. 'THE EXAMINER' IN TROUBLE 343

in them to the possibility of a better monarch, than
George III. succeeding him was declared by Sir Vicary
Gibbs, the attorney-general, to be a seditious libel,
and proceedings were instituted against Perry and the
printer of ' The Morning Chronicle,' as well as against
the two Hunts as proprietors of ' The Examiner.'

The case came on before Lord Ellenborough on
February 24, 1810, when Gibbs argued that ' nobody
who saw such language held could doubt that it must
have a manifest tendency to alienate and destroy the
affections of the people towards their sovereign, and
to break down that link of love which ought to connect
the sovereign and his people in the tenderest ties.'
Fortunately for the Hunts, Perry's name was first in
the indictment. Perry conducted his own case some-
what pompously, but very skilfully, claiming for ' The
Chronicle ' that it stood now, as it had stood before,
' in the front of the battle, not only for itself, but for
the liberty of the press in England,' and that the sole
point at issue was ' whether it should continue to assert
the principles upon which the "Whigs had ever acted,
and by which their only object was to perpetuate to his
majesty and his heirs the throne to which they per-
suaded the people of England to call his ancestors by
securing it upon that basis which forms not only its
strength but its lustre.' The jury returned a verdict
of not guilty, and the information against the Hunts
was withdrawn, thus lessening to them the expense —
which, however, was heavy — of the abortive prosecu-
tion.^

They were again less unlucky than they might have
been, just twelve months later, when they were indicted
for reprinting on September 2, 1810, a vigorous article
from ' The Stamford News ' against flogging in the

' State Trials, vol. xxx.

344 ANTI- JACOBINS AND EEFOEIMEES ch. xi.

army.^ For a similar offence, Cobbett was now endur-
ing two years' imprisonment, but tbe Hunts had Henry
Brougham to defend them, and his forcible presentment
of the views of Sir Ralph Abercromby, Sir Robert
"Wilson, and other great generals as to the folly of
corporal punishment, together with the effective con-
trast he drew between the dignity and honesty of ' The
Examiner,' and the licentiousness of other newspapers
which were not interfered with, secured an acquittal.^
Brougham was less successful when, a fortnight later,
he went down to Stamford to repeat the same argu-

' A few sentences of this article are worth quoting (indeed, the whole
would be if space allowed) as an illustration of Radical sentiment, tliree-
quarters of a century ago, on a scandal that has only lately been removed.
' The attorney-general ought not to stroke his chin with such complacency
when he refers to the manner in wluch Bonaparte treats his soldiers. We
despise and detest those who would tell us that there is as much liberty

now en joyed in France as there is left in this country But, although

we do not envy the general condition of Bonaparte's subjects, we really
(and we speak the honest conviction of our hearts) see nothing peculiarly
pitiable in the lot of his soldiers, when compared with that of our own.
Were we called upon to make our election between the services, the wliipcord
would at once decide us. No advantage whatever can compensate for, or
render tolerable to a mind but one degree removed from brutality, a lia-
bility to be lashed like a beast. It is idle to talk about rendering the
situation of a British soldier pleasant to himself, or desirable, far less
honourable in the estimation of others, while the whip is held over his head
— and over his head alone ; for in no other country in Europe (with the
exception, perhaps, of Russia, wliich is yet in a state of barbarity) is the
military character so degraded.'

' Report of the Proceedings against John Hunt and Leigh Hunt (Stam-
ford, 1811) ; State Trials, vol. xxxi. pp. 367-414. ' That licentiousness,
said Brougham, ' has of late years appeared to despise all the bounds which
had once been prescribed to the attacks on private character, insomuch that
there is not only no personage so important or exalted, for of that I do not
complain, but no person so humble, harmless, or retired, as to escape the
defamation which is daily and hourly poured forth by the venal crew to
gratify the idle curiosity, or still less excusable malignity, of the public.
To mark out for the indulgence of that propensity individuals retiring
into the privacy of domestic life, to hunt them down, and drag them
forth as a laughing-stock to the vulgar, has become in our days with some
men the road even to popularity, and with multitudes the means of earn-
ing a base subsistence.'

1809-1811. PROGEESS OF 'THE EXAMINER' 345

ments on behalf of Drakard, the original printer of the
article.^

The service that Brougham thus rendered to the
Hunts caused them to make ia his favour an exception
to their rule of not associating with prominent politi-
cians ; and they had plenty of other friends, some of
whom assisted them in filling ' The Examiner ' with
good articles, and also contributed to a stout quarterly
magazine, ' The Keflector,' which they commenced in
1810, but of which only four numbers appeared.
Among their contributors were Charles Lamb, Thomas
Barnes, who afterwards became editor of ' The Times '
and was now writiug for it,^ Dyer, and Scholefield — all
old schoolfellows of Leigh Hunt's at Christ Hospital,
to whom before long were added Hazlitt, Shelley, and
Keats .^

' The Examiner ' flourished in spite of the persecu-
tions to which it was exposed, and partly because of
them. Its conductors were able to boast that in each
of its first three years it had been attacked by the
government without success, and had increased its
circulation and influence. ' These circumstances,' they
said, ' may not be equally lucrative to the proprietors,
but they are equally flattering, and alike encourage
them in a line of conduct which enables them to de-
serve the one and to disdain the other.' * In the fourth
year their deserts were as great, but they had less cause
for congratulation.

The Prince of Wales obtained the promotion he had
long desired, and was made prince regent, on February

1 State Trials, vol. xxxi. pp. 495-535.

' Leigh Hunt also occasionally wrote for The Times to assist his friend.
Correspondence, vol. i. p. 28.

' Autobiography, p. 192 ; Leigh Hunt in Monthly Repository, 1837 ;
' The Examiner ' Twenty Years Ago.

* Examiner, ' Postscript ' to vol. iii.

346 ANTI-JAOOBINS AND REFORMERS oh. xi.

3, 1811 ; but as, from the very commencement of his
fz-esh authority, he gave fresh proof of his capacity for
abusing it, a year sufficed to deprive him of nearly all
the popularity, such as it was, that he had formerly
enjoyed. At a banquet given on St. Patrick's Day,
1812, which he attended, he was received with jeers
and hisses, much to his own annoyance and that of the
courtiers and sycophants. ' The Morning Post ' was
especially indignant and especially profuse in its condo-
lences, and one of its articles tempted Leigh Hunt to
make a very contemptuous rejoinder in' ' The Examiner '
of March 22. ' What person acquainted with the true
state of the case,' he exclaimed, ' would imagine, in
making these astounding eulogies, that this " glory of
the people " was the subject of milhons of shrugs and
reproaches ! that this " protector of the arts " had
named a wretched foreigner his historical painter, in
disparagement or in ignorance of the merits of his own
countrymen ! that this " Maecenas of the age " patronised
not a deserving writer ! that this " breather of elo-
quence " could not say a few decent extempore words —
if we are to judge, at least, from what he said to his
regiment on its embarkation for Portugal! that this-
" conqueror of hearts " was the disappointer of hopes!
that this " exciter of desire " (bravo, messieurs of " The
Post"!), this "Adonis in loveliness," was a corpulent
man of fifty ; in short, that this delightful, blissful, wise,,
pleasurable, honourable, virtuous, true, and immortal prince
was a violator of his word, a libertine over head and
ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the com-
panion of gamblers and demireps, a man who has just
closed half a century without one single claim, on the
gratitude of his country or the respect of posterity ! '
That was certainly strong and plain language to use
about one who was, in nearly everything but the title,

1812-1813. THE PEINCE REGENT r. 'THE EXAMINER' 347

king of England, and its offensiveness was aggravated
by the fact that much to the same effect, but more
cautious, had appeared in ' The Examiner ' during the
previous twelvemonth. ' I was provoked to write the
libel,' said Leigh Hunt, ' by the interest I took in the
disappointments of the Irish nation, which had very
particular claims on the promises of his royal highness,'
and ' I wrote an attack equally grave and vehement, such
as everybody said would be prosecuted.' ^

The prosecution began forthwith, but there were
various delays, and the trial only came off on De-
cember 9, and sentence was not passed by Lord
Ellenborough till February 3, 1813. ^ On that day,
notwithstanding Brougham's able and eloquent conduct
of their defence, John and Leigh Hunt were fined 500/.
apiece — the costs of the trial amounting to about an-
other 1,000/. — and were committed to prison for two
years : John to Coldbath Fields, and Leigh to Horse-
monger Lane, their separation being a malicious aggra-
vation of the punishment, as it increased their difficul-
ties in bringing out ' The Examiner ' while they were
in gaol. They continued to edit and manage the paper
very satisfactorily, however, and with no lessening of
its bold exposure of abuses and persistent advocacy of
reforms.

All that friends could do was done to lessen the
miseries of their captivity, which was in one important
respect made easy for them by their full and reasonable
assurance of their blamelessness. Even their gaolers
befriended them, and stretched the prison rules in order
to secure for them some sort of comfort. Leigh Hunt
had his family to reside with him, until, for the sake of
his childi'en's health, his wife — who, he tells us, never

^ Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries.

^ The Prince of Wales v. The Examvner: A Full Report, &c. (1813).

348 ANTI-JACOBINS AND REFORMERS ch. xt.

once reproached him for the public zeal that caused this
disturbance of their domestic happiness — took them to
the seaside. Hardly a day passed without his being
cheered by visitors — Charles and Mary Lamb, Barnes
and other old Bluecoat schoolfellows, Shelley, Hazlitt,
Byron, Moore, Cowden Clarke, Horace and James
Smith, Willcie, Haydon, Brougham, Su' John Swinburne,
and a host of others. Jeremy Bentham went at least
once to see him, and found him playing at battledore
and shuttlecock, ' in which he took part, and, with his
usual eye to improvement, suggested an amendment
in the construction of shuttlecocks.' When his friends
were not with him, and while his wife sewed and his
children played beside him, he finished ' The Story
of Rimioi,' and wrote ' The Descent of Liberty,' and
other poems, besides his weekly articles for ' The
Examiner.'

And he occupied himself in other ways. ' I pa-
pered the wall with a trellis of roses,' he tells us ; ' I
had the ceiling coloured with clouds and sky ; the
barred windows were screened with Venetian blinds,
and when my bookcases were set up with their busts
and flowers, and a pianoforte made its appearance, per-
haps there was not a handsomer room on that side the
water. I took a pleasure when a stranger knocked at
the door, to see him come in and stare about him.
Charles Lamb declared there was no other such room
except in a fairy tale. But I had another surprise, which
was a garden. There was a little yard outside, railed
off from another belonging to a neighbouring yard.
This yai-d I shut in with green palings, adorned it with
a trelUs, bordered it with a thick bed of earth from a
nursery, and even contrived to have a grass plot. The
earth I filled with flowers and young trees. There was
an apple tree, from which we managed to get a pudding

1813-1816. THE HUNTS IN PRISON 349

the second year. Here I wrote and read in fine weather,
sometimes under an awning. In autumn my trellises
were hung with scarlet-runners. I used to shut my
eyes in my armchair, and afifect to think myself hun-
dreds of miles off.' ^

About John Hunt, while he was in prison or out of
it, we hear less than about his more famous but not
worthier brother. To him, quite as much as to Leigh
Hunt, were due the credit of ' The Examiner,' and,
apart from the actual writing of its articles, its splen-
did services to the advancement both of literature and
of politics, and to journalism ia both those relation-
ships.

' PlxLlosophical, patient, just, a deep thinker, retiring,
unobtrusive, siacere,' said Cyrus Redding, one of the
many younger men who gathered round him, 'John
Hunt, in my view, stood foremost of any character I
have encountered. I used often to visit him, moved by
his solid, yet attractive, conversation, his just views of
things, stripping them of everything extraneous, and
coming at once to the point. He suffered no considera-
tion but truth to enter into a discussion, throwing policy
to the winds, and, while allowing for collateral circum-
stances and their interventions, keeping their argument
to its just limit. He was far in advance of his time.' ^
' He was a man of a rare stamp,' we are assured by
another and a more discerning Mend, Albany Fon-
blanque ; ' an honester never breathed. His devotion
to truth and justice knew no bounds ; there was no
peril, no suffering, he was not ready to encounter for
either. With resolution and fortitude not to be sur-
passed, he was one of the gentlest and kindest of beings.
His own sufferings were the only sufferings to which he

' Autobiography, pp. 239-244.

' Fifty Years' Recollections, vol. i. p. 275.

350 ANTI-JACOBINS AND REFORINIERS ch. xi.

could be indiflferent. His part as a reformer in the
worst times was unflincliing, and lie held his course
undauntedly when bold truths were visited with the
penalties of the prison, which he knew how to face and
how to endure. His way through the world was a
rough one, but his constancy was even, and tribulations
left him unshaken. He was at arm's length with care
throughout the greater part of his life, but never mas-
tered by it, for his goodness had a bravery in it which
always bore him up. Fortune's buffets, of which he had
a full share, left no bruises on him, and extorted no
murmur. His faults lay on the side of tenacity and pre-
possession ; when he had taken up a cause or a quarrel
it was hard to alter his views of the merits by fact or
argument ; and he was sometimes misled by his sym-
pathy with the weaker to fight the battle not really of
the juster, but of the worsted party. HaAong taken the
field when power was carrying every injustice with a
high hand, he was apt to believe it afterwards in the
wrong whenever called in question. But these errors
were few, and might have been fewer still had they been
less detrimental to his interest. There never was a
question in John Hunt's mind as to the side to be
taken in any discussion but the question of justice,
which he determined to the best of his judgment, and
acted upon the conclusion at aU risks. He fought the
battle in the front ranks when the battle was the hot-
test, but he passed into retirement in the very hour of
victory, as if he had done nothing, and deserved nothing
of the triumphant cause.' ^

The two brothers left their prisons in February 1815,
and continued the good work from which while in con-
finement they had refused to be debarred ; and John
Hunt was again sent to gaol for two years In May 1821.
' Examiner, September 16, 1848.

1815. THE MERITS OF JOHN HUNT 351

In the meanwliile, and afterwards, the struggle for
reform, in which ' The Exammer ' took the lead among
newspapers, went on. But already a mighty change
from the state of things prevailing when ' The Anti-
Jacobm ' appeared had been brought about.

352

CHAPTER XII.

DURING THE REGENCY,
1811—1820.

The trial of the Hunts in 1812 for libelling the prince
regent was only a notable instance of the severity with
which the law was used, all through the early years of
the nineteenth century, in vain efforts on the part of
the rulers of the nation to prevent newspaper criticism
of their conduct. The tyrannical policy that Pitt
and his subordinates had enforced with new vehe-
mence by help of the Libel Act of 1792, the Newspaper
Act of 1798, and other measures, was ruthlessly carried
on by Perceval, by Lord Liverpool, and by Canning.
In the three years from 1808 to 1811, no fewer than
forty-two prosecutions for libel were commenced,
although only twenty-six of them wei'e brought to
trial, and several, like the first two actions against the
Hunts, resulted in acquittals. This unparalleled severity
was admitted and even boasted of by the government
when complaints were made about it by Lord Holland
in the House of Peers and by Lord Folkestone in the
House of Commons in March 1811, immediately after
the regency had been established. ' It appears,' said
Lord Folkestone, and his allegation was not denied,
' that the rule which guides these prosecutions is this,
that " The Courier" and other papers which support the
ministry of the day may say whatever they please with-

1811-1820. INCEEASE OF TYRANNY 353

out fear of prosecution, whereas " The Examiner,"
" The Independent Whig," " The Statesman," and
papers that take the contrary line, are sure to be pro-
secuted for any expression tliat may be offensive to the
minister.' ^

This policy, pursued towards dealers in what were
called seditious tracts, and those who took part in what
were called seditious meetings, as well as towards news-
papers charged with sedition, had the only effect that could
reasonably have been anticipated. Instead of checking,
it encouraged, defiance of the government and angry
resistance to the lawlessness of servile legislators and
faithless custodians of law. A few agitators succumbed,
as did Cobbett, who, after the suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act in 1817, went to America for a couple of
years. ' I do not retire,' he said, ' from a combat with
the attorney-general, but from a combat with a dungeon,
deprived of pen, ink, and paper. A combat with the
attorney-general is quite unequal enough ; that, how-
ever, I would have encountered. I know too well what
a trial by special jury is ; yet that, or any sort of trial,
I would have stayed to face. But against the absolute
power of imprisonment, without even a hearing, for
time unlimited, in any gaol in the kingdom, without the
use of pen, ink, and paper, and without communication
with any soul but the keepers — against such a power it
would have been worse than madness to attempt to
strive.' ^ Others, like the Hunts, thought it anjrthing
but madness bravely to persevere in the strife ; and
some few, like William Hone, won present as well as
prospective victories. Although when Hone was
charged in 1817 with parodying the church liturgy,
Lord EUenborough declared that, ' mider the authority

1 Hansard's Pa/rliamentary Debates, vol. xix. cols. 140, 568.
» Cobbett's Political Register, March 28, 1817.
VOL. I. -A- A

354 DURINa THE KEGENCY cf. xn.

of the Libel Act, and still more in obedience to his
conscience and his God, he pronounced this to be a
most impious and profane libel,' the jury acquitted him.^
It was an inevitable sequel, long deferred but sure, to
such a struggle that reforms were secured so soon as
sensible counsels prevailed and as public opinion appre-
hended Lord Grey's warning in 1819, before the famous
Six Acts were passed, that ' the natural consequence of
such a system, when once begun, was that it could not
be stopped ; discontents begot the necessity of force ;
the employment of force increased discontents ; these
would demand the exercise of new powers, till by
degrees they would depart from all the principles of
the constitution.' ^

In the meanwhile, though the Radical newspapers
were harried, and in some respects weakened for a time,
in their acquisition of strength to be rightly used hereafter,
journalism gained much from the more discreet enter-
prise of those adepts in the craft who, having less to
fear from ministerial tyranny, had ample resources and
abundant zeal for its advancement. Among the eight
daily morning papers published in London in 1811,
' The Times,' though not yet the most profitable, was
the most energetic, and it had a worthy rival in ' The
Morning Chronicle ' as the organ of the Whigs, while
' The Morning Post ' and ' The Morning Herald ' satis-
fied Tory readers — ^the one giving special prominence
to ministerial politics, and the other to aristocratic
gossip ; and of the other four, ' The Public Ledger '
catered for the commercial class, ' The Morning Adver-
tiser ' for the licensed victuallers, ' The British Press '
for the booksellers, and ' The Day ' for the auctioneers.
There were also eight evening papers ; but ' The Courier'

' Sone's Trials.

' Hansard's Parliameniary Debates, vol. xli. ool. 50.

ISll. THE PEOQEESS OP 'THE TIMES' 355

alone, now a recognised ministerial organ, only too cle-
verly conducted from a business poiat of view, was of
much importance. The others were ' The Statesman,'
which was a bolder exponent of Whig opinions than
* The Chronicle' ; ' The Sun,' which was violently Tory ;
' The Pilot,' a short-lived, but while it lasted a vigorous
journal, which, started in 1807, made a speciahty of East
Indian affairs ; ' The Traveller,' which in Edward Quia's
hands was much more than the representative of the
corumercial travellers ; ' The Globe,' which was prac-
tically an afternoon edition of ' The British Press ' ; and
' The Star ' and ' The Alfred,' the latter lasting but a
few years, and neither of them of any political account.
Memorable illustration of the way in which, apart
from editorial or literary skill and even tact in collecting
advertisements and humouring various sorts of readers,
newspaper success can be obtained, was furnished by
the mechanical achievements of the second John Walter
on ' The Times.' His father's logographic process
having been abandoned, he promptly began to seek out
some better substitute for the slow and laborious
mode of printing then in vogue and, instead of con-
cerning himself about the improvement of types, paid
special attention to the improvement of printing presses.
As far back as 1804 Thomas Martyn, a workman in
the ' Times ' office, invented a self-acting press, the
plan of which was so promising that Walter provided
him with funds for carrying on his experiments. These,
however, were costly, and perilous as well, seeing that
the other printers threw every conceivable obstacle in
the way, destroyed the machinery that was brought into
the establishment or there constructed, and threatened
the life of their comrade, whom they regarded as a
traitor in their midst. Martyn appears to have been
either not clever or not persevering enough to perfect

A A 2

356 DURING THE REGENCY ch. xn.

Ms invention, and after some years of experimenting
Walter, wlto was still only a junior partner in the busi-
ness during Ms father's lifetime, abandoned the project.
He became Ms own master in 1812, however, and then
promptly opened negotiations with Frederick Koenig,
whose steam printing-press, first patented in 1810, had
been further developed in 1811 and again in 1813. In
1814 Koemg and his friend Bauer were provided with
premises adjoining the 'Times' office, and set up their
machinery with all possible privacy, though amid tjo
much opposition from the workmen, that at one time
they ran away, and were in hiding for three days. At
length all difficulties were overcome. ' The night on
wMch this curious machine was first brought into use
in its new abode,' we are told, ' was one of great anxiety
and even alarm. The suspicious pressmen had threatened
destruction to anyone whose invention might suspend
their employment — " destruction to him and his traps."
They were directed to wait for expected news from the
continent. It was about six o'clock in the morning
when Mr. Walter went into the press-room and
astonished its occupants by telling them that " The
Times " was already printed — by steam ; that if they
attempted|.violence there was a force ready to suppress
it ; but that if they were peaceable, their wages should
be continued to every one of them till similar employ-
ment could be procured — a promise which was no doubt
faithfully performed ; and, having said so, he distributed
several copies among them.' ^

' The Times ' of November 29, 1814, contained this
excusably pompous announcement : ' Our journal of
this day presents to the public the practical result of

1 Times, July 29, 1847. The story of Koenig's invention, and of
Walter's share in it, is told by Dr. Smiles in his Men of Invention and
Industry.

1811-1814. THE FIRST STEAM PRINTING-PRESS 357

the greatest improvement connected with priating since
the discovery of the art itself. The reader of this para-
graph now holds in his hand one of the many thousand
impressions of " The Tunes " newspaper which were
taken off last night by a mechanical apparatus. A
system of machinery, almost organic, has been devised
and arranged, which, while it relieves the human frame
of its most laborious efforts in printing, far exceeds all
hmnan powers in rapidity and despatch. That the
magnitude of the invention may be justly appreciated
by its effects, we shall uiform the public that, after the
letters are placed by the compositors and enclosed in
what is called the form, little more remains for man to
do than to attend upon and watch this unconscious
agent in its operations. The machine is then merely
supplied with paper. Itself places the form, inks it,
adjusts the paper to the form newly naked, stamps the
sheet, and gives it forth to the hands of the attendant,
at the same time withdrawmg the form for a fresh coat
of ink, which itself agaui distributes, to meet the ensu-
ing sheet, now advancing for impression ; and the
whole of these complicated acts is performed with such a
velocity and simultaneousness of movement, that no
less than eleven hundred sheets are impressed in one
hour.'

Walter lived to see his Koenig press so improved
by degrees, and partly through his own ingenuity, that
he was able to print off not merely eleven hundred but
nearly eight thousand copies in an hour ; and other
wonderful improvements, to be noted hereafter, fol-
lowed in due course. The revolution that he effected,
however, was immediate. He was able to get through
the actual work of printing in less than a third of the
time formerly required, and the whole edition of between
three and four thousand copies of ' The Times ' then

358 DURING THE REGENCY oh. xri.

issued could be produced in about three hours. This
enabled him to go to press much later and to publish
much earlier than any of his rivals with a paying circu-
lation, and, the process securing other economies as
well, he at once obtained an immense advantage over
all of them who could not afford or were not venture-
some enough to follow his example. Before six years
were out he had more than doubled the circulation of
' The Times,' and raised it to the pre-eminence among
successful newspapers which it enjoyed for half a
century.

While thus employed in increasing the commercial
value of his property, he was too busy to do much
editing, though for some time he reserved to himself
more than a general control over its policy. He was
his own editor in the years during which, as we have
seen, Peter Fraser was the chief writer of what Henry
Crabb Robinson called ' the flash articles which made a
noise,' with Edward Sterling for his second ; and after
that, when Sterling was promoted to the first rank. It
was Sterling who, by his forcible style of writing, only
too cautious to the extent of always keepiag on the
popular side, or rather the side taken by the more com-
fortable and prosperous portion of the community, se-
cured for ' The Times ' its nickname of ' The Thunderer,'
and he doubtless fully earned the salary of 2,000L a
year, unexampled for leader- writing in those days, which
Walter cheerfully paid him. He had the reputation of
being able to write best on the subjects of which he
knew least. ' When he was to write,' it was said, ' it
was necessary to cram him with the facts and points ;
but when he had once got them, he clothed his case so
admirably in its garment of words that all the world —
except those he hit at — were charmed.' ^

• Knight Hunt, vol. ii. p. 176.

1811-1818. 'THE TIMES' AND 'THE NEW TIMES' 359

The first editor of ' The Times ' under Walter
was Dr. — afterwards Sir John — Stoddart, who had a
legal appointment in Malta between 1803 and 1807.
He was a friend of Coleridge's, and like him at one
time an ardent supporter of the French Revolution ;
but before 1810, when his connection with ' The Times '
began, his opinions had changed and, adopting Burke's
views, he exaggerated them. Walter made no objec-
tion to his violent writing so long as the French war
lasted, and matters went smoothly from 1812, when
Stoddart's editorship began, till 1815, except that he
was fond of supplying more of his own articles than his
employer cared for, instead of being content to seek out
and revise good work from other contributors. Quar-
relling commenced, however, after the battle of Water-
loo, and early in 1817 Walter dispensed with his
editor's services, tendering him a liberal pension.''-
Stoddart declined this, and made an arrangement with
the proprietors of ' The Day,' in accordance with which,
in February 1817, the title of that paper was altered to
' The Day and New Times,' and as formidable opposi-
tion as could be contrived was offered by it to ' The
Times.' The title was again altered to ' The New
Times ' in January 1818, and much money was spent
during more than a dozen years on the venture, but
without success. Stoddart was too honest to be a
good Tory, and too crotchety to be anything else. He
made himself or his paper ridiculous by proposing ' to
unite to an unshaken loyalty a pure and an honourable
independence,' and professing ' an attachment as true
and unconstrained as it was ardent and sincere to our
great and glorious constitution.' He wearied his readers
by talking of the constitution as ' a thing of permanence,

' Sir Richard Phillips, Public Cliaracters (1823), vol. iii. p. 456 ;
Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816), p. 334.

360 DUKING THE REGENCY ch. xii.

susceptible indeed of continual growth in majesty and
vigour, but not a subject of perpetual experiment and
change.' He claimed to be a thoroughgoing anti-
Jacobin, an anti-Cobbett, and the enemy of everything
anti-ministerial ; approving, for instance, of the recent
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act on the ground
that ' the constitution among its many incomparable
excellences has furnished, not ministers, nor the crown,
nor any party in the state, but the state itself through
its great organ the legislature, with the means of rescu-
ing Hberty together with morals and religion from the
fangs of an insidious and sanguinary democracy ' ; ^ yet
he affected an impartiality and a dignity that offended
the Tories as much as the Whigs. ' The New Times '
therefore courted failure, and all the ponderous wi*iting
in it was wasted.

Stoddart's successor on ' The Times ' was Thomas
Barnes, whose connection with the paper had
begun in 1807 or earlier, when he was an occasional
contributor, his old schoolfellow and lifelong' friend
Leigh Hunt now and then assisting him.^ He soon
became a parliamentary reporter on the regular staff of
' The Times,' but used his leisure in writing much for
other papers, in spite of the obstacles raised by his
then somewhat unsteady habits. To ' The Champion,'
a weekly paper, he supplied a series of smart literary
criticisms, signed Strada, in 1812. ' The series,' says
Cyrus Bedding, who was at that tune editing ' The
Champion,' 'embraced most of the eminent bards,
living and dead, from Campbell and Kogers, back to
Milton, Shakespeare, and Spenser ; but of the novelists
the list was scanty, beginning and ending, if I mistake
not, with Mrs. Opie and Miss Edgeworth. These papers

' N&w Times, January 1, 1818.

' Correspondence of Leigh Sunt, vol. i. p. 28.

1807-1817. BAKNES IN HIS EARLY DAYS 361

displayed great acumen as well as a delicate taste, and,
though, the writer, entertaining a very decided opinion
as to the merits of the different authors, expressed
them with a corresponding frankness, his unfavourable
verdicts were free from the rude dogmatism and scurri-
hty that disgraced his angry ebullitions when he became
" the Thunderer." As these papers excited a great
deal of attention and were deemed highly advantageous
to the paper, it became a matter of importance to secure
their regular appearance — an object not easily attained
with a writer whose habits were rarely temperate and
never methodical. After several complaints of his irre-
gularity, he himself suggested a scheme by which he
might be guaranteed against future disappointment ;
and it proved successful. Writing matei'ials were placed
upon a table by his bedside, together with some volumes
of the author he was to review, for the purposes of
quotation, for he was already fully imbued with the
characteristics and conversant with the works of all our
great writers. At his customary hour he retired to
rest, sober or not, as the case might be, leaving orders
to be called at four o'clock in the morning, when he
arose with a bright, clear, and vigorous intellect, and,
immediately applying himself to his task, achieved it
with a completeness and rapidity that few could equal,
and which none, perhaps, could have surpassed. Be it
recorded, to his infinite praise, that in later life he must
have totally conquered all the bad habits to which I
have alluded,' ^ Another series of articles, racy sketches
of conspicuous members of parliament, was supplied by
Barnes in 1815 to ' The Examiner,' to which he was
a frequent contributor under Leigh Hunt. His editor-
ship of ' The Times ' began in 1817, but can be most
conveniently dealt with in a later chapter.

^ New Monthly Maqazime.

362 DURING THE REGENCY ch. xn.

One of Barnes's colleagues, and afterwards his sub-
ordinate on the staff of ' The Times,' was John Payne-
Collier, the great Shakespeare student and antiquary,
whose father, John Dyer Collier, had also been a par-
liamentary reporter for it from 1806 or 1807. It was
he who introduced Henry Crabb Robinson to Walter in
1807. Young Collier, Avho took his father's place about
1809, held it for at least ten years, and his reporting
got him into a scrape in 1819. On June 14 in that
year Canning complained in the House of Commons
that in ' The Times ' Joseph Hume had been reported
as having made insulting remarks about him, which
Hume, when taxed with them, repudiated. Collier,
whose name had been given up, was accordingly called
before the bar of the house on the 15th. He apolo-
gised, but was placed under the custody of the sergeant-
at-arms for a night, the house refusing the govern-
ment's request that he should be committed to Newgate
for an indefinite period. Next day he was discharged
with a reprimand, and on payment of the fees.^ These
fees amounted to between 14Z. and 15Z. ; but Walter, in
consideration of the annoyance he had been subjected
to, handed him a note for 50^., bidding him keep the
balance.^ On this occasion. Sir James Mackintosh,
always loyal to the journalistic craft to which he be-
longed, said 'he felt himself bound to express his
opinion in favour of the generally improved character
of the public press ; for whatever political bias par-
ticular newspapers might have and might exercise re-
specting the several parties to which they were attached,
he never recollected a period in which their columns ex-
hibited more general decorum, more general ability,
more exemplary abstinence from the attacks upon

' Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xi. cola. 1138-1158, 1103-
ll'i'V. ^ Henry Crabb Bohinson's Diary, vol. i. p. 330.

1810-1820. PEOGEESS OF ' THE MOENING CHEONICLE ' 363

private life, and from these disgraceful invasions of
tlie privacy of domestic character wliicli were once so
much indulged in.'

These remarks were not applicable to all the papers,
but they were true of ' The Times,' and also of ' The
Morning Chronicle.' . Under James Perry's manage-
ment, ' The Chronicle,' though outstripped by ' The
Times,' had now been flourishing for more than a third
of a century. When Perry died in 1821 the property
which he had bought in 1780 for 1,500^. was sold for
42,000Z., and his profits during the last year amounted '
to 12,000/.

Keeping the general editorship in his own hands
till 1817, but leaving much to able assistants, Perry
assigned it in that year to Thomas Black, who, born
in 1783, had begun his connection with the paper as a
reporter in 1810. Black entered on his duties at an
unfavourable time. An abler and a more honest man
than Barnes, with whom, starting at the same date, he
ran a race for eighteen years, he was for some time
heavily handicapped by the superior resources of ' The
Times,' and also by the growing disfavour with which
the governing classes regarded the ' plain Whig prin-
ciples ' to which ' The Chronicle ' steadily adhered, and
which, denounced as revolutionary by the Tories, were
considered hardly better than Toryism by the rising
body of Radicals. ' The Chronicle ' was seriously
damaged in 1819 by its excessive denunciation of the
victims of the Peterloo massacre, and in 1820 by its
support of the newly-made king in his persecution of
Queen Caroline.

There was no lack of skilful writing in ' The
Chronicle.' Mackintosh, Brougham, and nearly all the
leading Whig politicians who could write were occa-
sional if not frequent contributors ; David Eicardo

364 DURING THE REGENCY ch. xn;

and other economists addressed letters to it ; ^ and be-
sides Thomas Campbell, as we have seen, Thomas
iMoore and many others wrote prose as well as verse for
it. Moore's ' Epistle from Tom Cribb ' appeared in
September 1815, and a few days afterwards this an-
nouncement had to be made : ' We have had so many
and such incessant applications for the paper which
contains the exquisite jeu d^ esprit, that we shall reprint
it to-morrow.' ^

But the most cultured and plentiful contributor to
' The Chronicle ' at this time was William JHazlittj who
had now given up painting as a profession, and dis-
covered that the pen was the instrument he was fittest to
handle. Writing often for ' The Examiner,' and espe-
cially between January 1815 and January 1817, when
he and Leigh Hunt produced in it the weekly essays
entitled ' The Round Table,' he began to write political
articles for ' The Chronicle ' in 1813, and continued
them until he found more congenial occupation as a
theatrical critic and writer on art. The papers after-
wards collected in ' A Yiew of the English Stage ' were
selections from the admirable articles that he furnished
to 'The Chronicle' between 1814 and 1817. 'His
dramatic criticisms,' Talfourd aptly said, ' are more
pregnant with fine thoughts than any others which
ever were written ; yet they are often more successful
in making us forget their immediate subjects than in
doing them justice. He could not, like Leigh Plunt,
who gave theatrical criticism a place in modern litera-
ture, apply his powers to a detail of a performance, and

' The first of a series of letters, afterwards reprinted as Tlie High
Price of Bullion a Proof of t/ie Depreciation of Bank Notes, by Ricardo,
appeared in The Chronicle of September 6, 1809.

^ Lord Russell, Memoirs, Journal, and. Correspondence of Thomas
Moore, vol. ii. p. 81. Several of Moore's newspaper skits in verse are
printed in the collection of his works.

1814-1817. BAZLITT AND ' THE MORNING CHRONICLE '365

make it interesting by the delicacy of Ms touch, en-
crystal the cobweb intricacies of a plot with the spark-
ling dew of his own fancy, bid the light plume wave in
the fluttertag grace of his style, or " catch ere she fell
the Cynthia of the mitiute," and fix the airy charm in
lasting words. In criticism thus just and picturesque
Hunt has never been approached ; but Hazlitt required
a more powerful impulse. He never wrote wUlingly,
except on what was great in itself or, forming a portion
of his own past being, was great to him ; and when both
these fehcities combined in the subject, he was best^of
all.' '

About the relations between Hazlitt and Perry
some amusing information is given by Mary Russell
Mitford. ' I was at Tavistock House,' Perry's resi-
dence, she wrote in December 1818, referring to the
date of Hazlitt's articles on Kean, ' and very well re-
member the doleful visage with which Mr. Perry used
to contemplate the long column of criticism, and how
he used to execrate " the damned fellow's damned stuff"
for filling up so much of the paper m the very height
of the advertisement season. I shall never forget his
long face. It was the only time of the day that I ever
saw it long or sour. He had not the slightest suspicion
that he had a man of genius ia his pay, not the most
remote perception of the merit of the writing, nor the
slightest companionship with the author. He hired him
as you hire your footman, and turned him off (with as
little or less ceremony than you would use in discharg-
ing the aforesaid worthy personage) for a very masterly
critique on Sir Thomas Lawrence, whom Mr. Perry, as
one whom he visited and was being painted by, chose
to have praised. HazHtt's revenge was exceedingly

' Talfourd, Tlioughts upon the Intellectual Character of the late William
Sazlitt.

366 - DURING THE REGENCY ch xii.

characteristic. Last winter, when his " Characters of
Shakespeare" and his lectures had brought him into
fashion, Mr. Perry remembered him as an old acquaint-
ance, and asked him to dinner, and a large party to
meet him, to hear him talk, and to show him off as the
Hon of the day. The lion came, smiled and bowed,
handed Miss Bentley to the dining-room, asked Miss
Perry to take wine, said once " Yes " and twice " No,"
and never uttered another word the whole evening.
The most provoking part of this scene was that he was
gracious and pohte past all expression, a perfect pattern
of mute elegance, a silent Lord Chesterfield ; and his
unlucky host had the misfortune to be very thoroughly
enraged without anything' to complain of ^

A pleasanter story is told about Perry in the last
year of his life. Two of his old contributors, Campbell
the poet and Cyrus Redding, started ' The New
Monthly Magazine,' in opposition to Sir Richard
Phillips's ' Monthly Magazine,' and asked Perry to
assist them. ' He flatly refused,' says Redding, ' be-

' Life of Mary Russell Mitford, edited by A. G. L'Eatrange, vol. i. p.
47. It is only fair, however, to quote a kindlier reminiscence as regards
Perry, which was dated twenty-five years later. ' Very many years ago,'
Miss Mitford wrote in 1853, concerning Thomas Moore (vol. iii. p. 254),
' I used to see him in a house which gathered together all that was best
of the great Whig party — Mr. Perry's, the editor and proprietor of T)ie
Momiiig Ghronicle — a man so genial and so accomplished that even when
Erskine and Romilly and Tierney and Moore were present, he was the
most charming talker at his own table. I saw Mr. Moore many years
afterwards,' she added, less kindly, ' at Mr. Walter's of Tlie Times. Such
a contrast ! I am speaking of old Mr. Walter, the shyest and awkwardest
of men, who could not bear to hear the slightest allusion to the jovirnal
from which he derived both his fortune and his fame. The poet had
arrived with Mr. Barnes, the editor, and put his host and his introducer
into an agony by talking all through dinner as frankly of The Times as he
used to do at Mr. Perry's of The Chronicle. It was a most amusing scene,
and I think when I enlightened him upon the subject he was very glad of
the mistake he had made. " They deserve it," said he to me, " for being
ashamed of what, rightly conducted, would be an honour." '

1611-1820. SOME OTHER NEWSPAPERS 367

cause " The New Monthly" was the title of another
magazine, named " new " for party purposes. " Attack
principles if you will — it is all well ; but to take a
name with the view of attacking it under such objects —
it is impossible for me to approve of such an act.
There is a ' New Times ' started against ' The Times.'
How should I hke a ' New Morning Chronicle ' to be
brought out against me by an advantage of the law ? " ' ^
Perry had his faults. He was a much better editor,
however, more intelligent and more courteous, than more
than one of his contemporaries. Alexander Chalmers,
who had charge of ' The Morning Herald ' for several
years after Bate Dudley's retirement, was an educated
man ; but he appears to have thought more of his
antiquarian researches than of the newspaper, which
certainly was not one that a conscientious editor could
mend. Both ' The Morning Herald ' and ' The Morn-
ing Post ' were mere panderers to the political folly and
the social vice of the Tories during the corrupt years
before and after George IV- was king, and with few ex-
ceptions the editors and writers employed upon them
were hacks in whose excuse much might be said, as
they had perhaps no other means of earning a living, if
their exploits were worth chronicling at all. Nor do
the other daily papers deserve much mention. ' The
Courier,' the ministerial evening journal, deteriorating
every year, but for a long time maintaining its circula-
tion, at length lost ground so completely that, described
as ' a paper of shifts and expedients, of bare assertions
and thoughtless impudence.' it was said to ' subsist for
twenty readers, clergy and gentry, who do not like to
be disturbed with a reason for anything.' ^ ' The Sun,'
with the same poUtics, but more disreputable, was its

• C3n:us Redding, Fifty Tears' Becollectioiis, vol. ii. p. 165.
" Edinburgh Eevieiv, July 1823, p. 367.

368 DURING THE REGENCY ch. xii.

chief rival for some time.^ A much more honest and
far more ably conducted paper was ' The Statesman,'
projected in 1806 by John Hunt — who, however, seems
to have had no hand in its management — and edited
during several years by Daniel Lovell, but much ham-
pered by the libel prosecutions that its outspoken criti-
cism of the Tories brought upon it. In 1817 it was
heavily fined for speaking of ' the prostituted " Courier,"
the venerable apostate of tyranny and oppression, whose
full-blown baseness and infamy held hhnfast to his present
connections and prevented him from formmg new ones.' '^
In this year, 1817, an interesting innovation was
made in journalism by the commencement of ' The
Literary Gazette,' which was edited during several
years by WUliam Jerdan, who had previously been
employed on ' The Sun,' ' The Pilot,' and some other
and less respectable papers. This was not the first
publication of its class, Dunton and others having
anticipated it in rude ways by more than a century,
and there was nearly as much literary criticism, and of
better quality, in ' The Examiner ' and some of the
other papers ; but it was a commendable experiment in
what was almost a new line. It undertook to furnish,
in weekly numbers of sixteen pages, for a shilling, ' a
clear and instructive picture of the moral and literary
improvement of the times and a complete and authentic
chronological literary record for reference.' Among its
contributors were George Crabbe, Barry Cornwall,
Mary Russell Mitford, and Dr. Croly.'

• Readers curious about the seamy side of journalism two generations
ago, are referred to the autobiographies of William Jerdan and John
Taylor, both of whom claimed to be editing The Snn at the same time,
and carried on their feud in public. Jerdan was by far the worthier man
of the two. 2 Andrews, vol. ii. p. 91.

' Autobiography of William Jerdan, vol. i. pp. 175, 177, 191, 192, 236.
A rival. The Literary Chronicle, appeared in March 1818.

1819. LEIGH HUNT'S 'INDICATOR' 369

Vastly superior to anytliing that Jerdan could
produce in liis weekly paper, in the way of refined
criticism and literary guidance, were the contents of
' The Indicator,' which Leigh Hunt started on October
13, 1819. It was only continued through sixty- six
weeks, and was even less of a newspaper than was
' The Spectator ' of Steele and Addison, on which it
was modelled with variations ; but it was in admirable
contrast to nearly all the reading provided by the
weekly papers in days when ministers and their under-
lings did their utmost to lower the character and crush
the independence of journahsm, and it was fuU of
matter that is of lasting worth. Hunt's ' indicator '
was the cucidus indicator of Linnteus, the African
honey-bird which 'indicates to honey-hunters where
the nests of wild-bees are to be found,' which ' calls
them with a cheerful cry, which they answer, and,
on finding itself recognised, flies and hovers over
a hollow tree containing the honey.' ^ That function
Hmit undertook to perform for any readers who cared
to follow him, believing with Spenser that ' a dram of
sweet is worth a pound of sour.' With genial criti-
cism and kindly satire, graceful remuiiscences of old
episodes of history and far-ofi* fables, instructive com-
ments on old writers like Chaucer and Shakespeare,
and on new books like Shelley's ' Cenci ' and Keats's
' Lamia,' and amiable gossip on present-day themes,
he filled his pages. His own half-sorrowful notes will
show us something of their quality. ' Let me console
myself a little,' he says, ' by remembering how much
Hazlitt and Lamb and others were pleased with " The
Indicator." Hazlitt's paper was the one on " Sleep ; "
perhaps because there is a picture in it of a sleeping
despot, though he repeated, with more enthusiasm than

1 Indicator, October 13, 1819.
VOL. I. B B

370 DURING THE REGENCY ch. xii.

he was accustomed to do, the conclusion about the parent
and the bride. Lamb preferred the paper on " Coaches
and their Horses," that on " Deaths of Little Children,"
and, I think, the one entitled " Thoughts and Guesses
of Human Nature." Shelley took to the story of " The
Fair Revenge," and the paper that was most liked
by Keats, if I remember, was one on a hot summer's
day, entitled " A Now." He was with me while I
was writing it, and contributed one or two of the
passages.'^ Keats made other contributions to 'The
Indicator ' ; and so, probably, did other friends of
Leigh Hunt's, though their help was chiefly required
for ' The Examiner.'

Hazlitt gave him most help on ' The Examiner,'
but the rest assisted, Shelley sending his ' Hymn to
Intellectual Beauty,' for instance, in the sunamer of
1816, and also ' The Masque of Anarchy.' 'I did not
insert it,' Hunt wrote of this latter, ' because I thought
that the public at large had not become sufficiently dis-
cerning to do justice to the sincerity and kind-hearted-
ness that walked in this flaming robe of verse.' ^

Even Leigh Hunt had to pay some heed to popular
prejudices when such a man as Hazlitt — with whom
Hunt had a passing quarrel on the subject — sneered
at Shelley as ' a philosophic fanatic ' ; ' for ' The Ex-
aminer ' was now in very low water, the circulation
having fallen off, and its proprietors being sorely
crippled in funds through the heavy expenses brought
upon them by repeated prosecutions. They foimd it
no easy matter to stand out against the public opinion
— the opinion, that is, of those who could afford to
pay the high price the heavy stamp duty rendered it

' Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, p. 249.

' Dowden, Life of Slielley, vol. ii. p. 280.

' W. C. Hazlitt, Memoir of William Hazlitt, vol. i. p. 305.

1816-1820. 'THE EXAMINEE' IN DIFFICULTIES 371

necessary to charge for ' The Examiner ' — which was
aroused by such trials as those of Kichard and Jane
Carlile in 1819 and 1820. ' It is our honesty that has
injured our paper,' Leigh Hunt wrote to Shelley ui
July 1821, ' particularly upon the occasion of Carlile's
trial and public occurrences of a similar nature. Ours
is almost the only journal that is not dotard or hypo-
crite on such matters.' ^ John Hunt was then under-
going his second term of two years' imprisonment ;
and, as Leigh was constrained to admit, 'politics dif-
ferent from ours were triumphing aU over Europe.' ^
' The Examiner,' fortunately, was not abandoned.
John Hunt managed it from gaol, and Leigh, broken
down in health, but encouraged to hope that by joining
Shelley, Byron, and other friends in Italy he could best
serve the interests he had most at heart, left his nephew,
Henry Leigh Hunt, to edit the paper while he went
abroad for, as it happened, nearly four years. ' It was
agreed by my broliher John,' he said, ' that whUe a
struggle was made in England to reanimate " The
Examiner," a simultaneous endeavour should be made
in Italy to secure new aid to our prospects and new
friends to the cause of liberty.' '

WhUe English journalism in its best phase was in
this gloomy state, the general aspect, as it appeared to
foreigners, was tolerably bright. ' These journahsts,'
wrote one visitor to London in 1820, ' are no famished
authors, who pawn their civil honour for a piece of
gold. Most of them are possessed of considerable pro-
perty, no less than 18,000/. being required to bring a
newspaper into circulation ; and their revenues, therefore,
often exceed those of a minister of state. The yearly
income of the proprietor of "The Morning Herald"

1 Gorrespondence of Leigh Hwnt, toI. i. p. 164.
^ Autobiography, p. 282. ' Ibid.

B B 2

37^ DURING THE EEGENCY ch. xn.

exceeds, as I am well assured, tlie sum of 8,000Z., and
the clear profits of " The Star," I have been informed
by one of its co-owners, amount to about three-fourths
of that sum. The property of a paper, however, is
sometimes vested in fifty different persons, who have
advanced the capital requisite for this undertaking,
divide the annual profits among themselves, and from
their joint stock deduct a certain stipend to the writer
of the paper, who is generally a respectable author.
But it may easily be conceived that they proceed with
great caution in appointing anyone to this office, and
that they keep a strict and jealous eye over all his
motions. Such a writer is under the immediate in-
spection of the public, of the proprietors, of the opposite
party, and of his brother editors, who eagerly detect
his failings and are his professional rivals. They live,
indeed, in a perpetual warfare with each other : all the
artifices usual with authors are devised and put in
practice amongst them ; and their mutual jealousies
sometimes give birth to scenes of an extraordinary
nature.' ^

The yearly returns of stamps issued by the ex-
chequer authorities show that, while the total number
of newspapers sold in 1760, when Greorge III. ascended
the throne, was only 9,464,790, it had risen to
24,424,713 in 1811, when he practically ceased to
reign, and to 29,387,843 in 1820, the aggregate cir-
culation having more than trebled in sixty years.

' C. A. Gottlieb Goede, A Foreigner's Opinion of England (1821).

373

CHAPTER XIII.

AFTER TWO CENTURIES.
1820.

The year 1820 marks no crisis in newspaper history,
tlie same policy being pursued by George IV. and his
ministers during the ten years of his kingship as during
the nine years in which he was regent, and the same
difficulties, dangers, and degradations having after as
well as before it to be met, evaded, or overcome. But
this is a convenient halting-place for a brief review of the
progress made by journalism throughout the period of
nearly two hundred years that had now elapsed since
the date that may be assigned for its commencement,
and before we look at the events of the two following
generations.

When Nathaniel Butter issued his ' Courant, or
Weekly News ' in 1621, he only made what appears to
have been the first English attempt to give ia serial
form and at regular intervals such meagre reports of
foreign affairs as had previously been given in occasional
pamphlets; nor was that crude anticipation of a modern
newspaper very successful. The eight small pages of
' The Courant ' would fiU barely more than eight pages
of this volume, and its iaadequate summary of news
only purported to be ' taken out of the High Dutch.'
Such as it was, however, it was, so far as we know, an
advance from anything of the sort that preceded it, and

374 AITER TWO CENTURIES ch. xin.

it "was not much improved upon during the next twenty
years. Original newspaper work could not be attempted
tUl after the Star Chamber had been overthrown, and the
Long Parliament had recognised, within narrow limits,
the right of free speech and free writing. ' Mercurius
Aulicus,' in which Birkenhead coarsely supported the
cause of Charles I., who now sanctioned the use on his
behalf of weapons he had not tolerated while he could
dispense with them, and ' Mercurius Britannictis,' in
which Nedham was too republican for the Long Parlia-
ment, were the pioneers of modem journalism, but such
progress as they and others in the Commonwealth time
achieved was checked when Stuart misrule was revived.
Except in the case of the official organs, ' The London
Gazette ' and ' The Intelligencer,' which furnished
merely such garbled scraps of news as were thought
suitable for public reading, journalism only existed on
suflferance, sickly and crippled, after the Restoration,
and untH the Licensing Act was allowed to lapse in
1695.

Better days began with the Revolution, and aU
through the eighteenth century newspaper enterprise
was developed. Its progress, however, was slow and
fitful. The Stamp Act, invented by the Tories as a
milder instrument of tyranny than the Licensing Act,
was a formidable weapon for coercion and repression in
the hands both of Tories and of Whigs, and Walpole,
not inventing but amplifying the device, set a fashion
of bribery and corruption which was quite as degrading
to the press as actual intimidation could be. This
more insidious agency of debasement than any laws
could create or strengthen was one that no legislation
could stamp out, even if the legislators had cared to
try the experiment, and the mischief has not yet been
quite cured. Another dangerous weapon in the hands

1621-1820. PEOGRESS UNDER TYRANNY 375

of TiQwortJiy or not sufficiently wise rulers was their
power of distorting the law of libel into a machine for
the vindictive persecution of all whom they objected to.
The Libel Act of 1792 established the right of juries to
decide on the guilt or innocence of culprits brought
before them, instead of their being required to accept
meekly the ruling of the judges; but the full recognition
of that right was only tediously obtained after persistent
struggling, and even then, so long as the government
of the day thought fit to institute frivolous, biassed, and
oppressive prosecutions for libel, it was able, by throw-
ing upon them heavy expenses and other obstacles
in the pursuit of their calling, to inflict cruel punish-
ments on persons whose innocence was ultimately proved.
At the stage of our record which we have now reached,
and for some time later, the Libel Act was made in-
strumental to as much injustice as had prevailed before
it was passed.

The earlier newspapers pretended to give no more
than bare epitomes of news, with now and then ampler
details of particular events, like a great battle, or a great
fire, a specially interesting scandal in courtly circles, or
some alleged prodigy, like the bu'th of a child with
four legs or two heads, among the poorer classes ; and
these reports, whether brief or copious, were often
inaccurate through the perverseness of the reporters or
the faultiness of their information. Hardly any news,
however, even the baldest, could be repeated without
some flavouring from the writer's opinion, and thus
gradually and inevitably, as they grew larger and more
plentiful, the newspapers became guides of public
policy or exponents of popular prejudice, and took sides
accordingly. A striking example of this is furnished
by the rival newspapers of the Commonwealth period,
and at a later date by the contradictory ' Posts ' and

376 AFTER TWO CENTUEIES ch. xin.

' Postboys ' of Queen Anne's time. Almost from the
first, moreover, journalists attempted to be critics as
well as newsmongers. Sir Roger L'Estrange issued
bis ' Observator,' wbicb was a weekly review, not a
chronicle, in Charles II.'s reign, and Tutchin followed
with another ' Observator,' of the same sort but quite
different politics, under WiUiam III. Defoe, in his
' Review,' greatly developed this branch of journalism,
and some others as well, and he had famous rivals and
imitators in Steele and Addison, who, however, as did
some of their successors, like Johnson and Goldsmith,
generally preferred social and literary questions to
politics, and, affecting to despise newspapers, delivered
themselves either in essay sheets like ' The Spectator,'
which were not newspapers, or in weekly miscellanies
like ' The Universal Chronicle.' It was Defoe again,
more than anyone else, who in ' Mist's Journal ' and
other papers made it customary to give news and
elaborate comments in the same journal, and the plan
was hardly improved upon till John and Leigh Hunt
started ' The Examiner.' The first newspapers, being
published weekly, provided nothing but such news as
they could collect. When, early in the eighteenth
century, daily newspapers began, they continued to
provide little more than news, leaving it for the newer
and generally short-lived weekly papers, either to
provide essays and critical articles alone, as in the case
of ' The Spectator,' ' The Connoisseur,' and some hun-
dreds of others, or to enliven their reports of events,
obtained at second hand, Avith a few columns of original
writing, as in the case of ' Mist's,' ' Read's,' and other
journals. The dailies began to usurp what was then
regarded as the function of the weeklies when such
letters as Junius's appeared in ' The Public Advertiser,'
and before the end of George III.'s reign every paper

1621-1820. EVOLUTION IN NEWSPAPEKS 377

of importance had its leading articles, its theatrical
notices, and perhaps even its reviews of books and
miscellaneous essays, as well as its reports of domestic
and foreign occurrences, of parliamentary debates and
pubhc meetiags, for all of which much ampler space
than formerly was afforded by the enlarged size of the
sheets.

The steady growth of newspapers is shown, not
only by their rapidly iucreasiug numbers and frequency
of publication, but also by their enlargement in size.
Until the time of Queen Anne a small sheet, technically
known as a half-sheet, divided into eight quarto pages,
usually in double columns, was as much as a week's
supply of news could fill even with the help of advertise-
ments, and when the first daily paper was started in
1702 it was printed only on one side of the folio. These
limits were accepted as sufficient by the framers of the
Stamp Act in 1712, and, except that on two occasions
enlargement of the sheet was allowed as a favour to
compensate for the raising of the stamp duty, no paper
containuig more than eight quarto or four folio pages
was permitted to be issued with a single stamp. The
weekly papers usually preferred the quarto shape, often
squeezing three columns into the page. The dailies
appeared iu folio, giving three, or, before the close of
the eighteenth century, four long columns, chiefly of
small type, in each page. ' The Times ' of 1820 thus
contained about eight times as much matter every day,
or forty-eight times in a week, as was contained in
' The Weekly News ' of 1621.

Many things of course conduced to this growth,
such as the increased facilities of communication be-
tween England and foreign countries and different parts
of England itself, and the improved mechanical appli-
ances which, benefiting all classes and all movements,

378 AFTER TWO CENTUEIES ch. xrn.

had their most notable result thus far on newspaper
de-vf^lopment m John Walter's adoption of Koenig's
steam printing press. But the great stimulus came
fron^ 'the popular demand for information and instruc-
tion,'^ and newspapers prospered, in spite of all that
ministws and courtiers could do against them, through
the energy with which capable and generally honest
men set themselves to meet that demand. The battle
won by the managers and writers who, in 1771, made
good their claim to report the proceedings of parlia-
ment was in itself of immense national advantage, and
added vastly to the value of newspapers as informers
of public opinion ; and the enterprise lately shown by
Walter, Perry, and others, in collecting special and
independent reports of military events and foreign
affairs in general, was the commencement of a new
branch of journalism which was afterwards much ex-
tended. Skilful, discerning, and enthusiastic news-
paper proprietors and editors had come to understand
the great power they wielded or could wield, and for
the most part they made right use of their opportunities.
For a long while the same persons were generally both
proprietors or part proprietors and editors, as is still
sometimes the case, and often they did most of the
writing themselves ; but at no time, or only in seasons
of exceptional misfortune, was the press without
valuable assistance from great men who were not
journalists by profession, or who only made journalism
one of their avocations. Milton's work on Nedham's
' Mercurius Politicus,' two centuries and a third ago,
may not have been considerable ; but since Milton's
day there has been a constant and brilliant succession
of writers and thinkers, eminent in politics and litera-
ture, who have been newspaper contributors. The
names of Defoe, Swift, Steele, and Addison, Fielding,

1621-1820. EVOLUTION IN JOURNALISM 379

Smollett, Jolmson, and Goldsmith, Bolingbroke and
Burke, Churcliill and Chatterton, Mackintosh and Can-
ning, Coleridge, Lamb, Southey, Hazlitt, Shelley, and
Leigh Hunt, are but twenty of those which have been
before us in the previous chapters ; and if most of
these were men of letters more than politicians, and of
divers views in politics, the number of busy politicians
who found time to write in newspapers was not small.

Thus far we have concerned ourselves almost ex-
clusively with newspapers published in London, and it
would be impossible to trace in detail the history of
provincial journalism. Nor is there much need for
this as, till recently, the provincial press has been to a
large extent a reflex and imitation of the London press.
Some notes of its progress, however, may be conveni-
ently made here.^

Such papers as ' Mercurius Aulicus,' published
while Charles I. was in Oxford, or ' Mercurius Hiberni-
cus ' issued from Bristol in 1644, and an Ediaburgh
edition of ' Mercurius Politicus ' printed by Cromwell's
order in 1653, cannot properly be called provincial
journals, and none such, in fact, could well appear
except in Scotland before 1695, when the abohtion of
the Licensing Act removed the limitation of printing
presses to twenty in London besides the two allowed
for university printiug in Oxford and Cambridge.
There were illicit country presses, but none of a sort
able to turn out a newspaper.

Scotland had its own regulations prior to the Act of
Union, and a ' Mercurius Caledonius ' was commenced
in Edinburgh in 1660 ; but it appears to have lasted

' For most of the information given in the following pages I am indebted
to Andrews, British Journalism, vol. i. pp. 268-326, and vol. ii. pp. 123-
164, and to Mitchell's Newspaper Press Directory ; and in the later para-
graphs to Thomas's History of the American Press.

380 AFTER TWO CENTURIES ch. xiii.

only a few months, and the first important paper was
' The Edinburgh Gazette ' which James Donaldson was
licensed to print in 1699. Donaldson's licence assigned
to him a monopoly in Edinburgh as regards the pub-
lishing of 'an abridgment of foreign news, together
with the occurrences at home ' ; but in 1705 his some-
time partner, James Watson, obtained a licence for
' The Edinburgh Courant ' notwithstanding Donald-
son's protestation that 'there is no possibility of two
newswriters subsisting by that employment in this
place,' and that he had ' some years bygone obtained
the sole privilege of publishing the news, which project
was looked on as a general benefit, and has been pro-
secuted with so much care and diligence that by this
means he made a shift to subsist himself and family,
and was thereby supported under the great losses he
sustained by his early zeal and affection to the govern-
ment.' Not only was 'The Edinburgh Courant'
allowed to continue, but in 1706 Watson started a third
paper, ' The Scots Courant,' which came out thrice a
week and was intended for country circulation. It is
noteworthy that in February 1710 Daniel Defoe was
the licensed printer of * The Edinburgh Courant.'
Defoe was at this time in Scotland on a secret mission
from the Tory government to smooth over the diffi-
culties consequent on the unpopularity in Scotland of
the Act of Union, and ' The Courant ' was for a while
the ministerial champion in Edinburgh. By this time
it had been found possible for a good many more than
two newswriters to subsist in the Scottish capital.
'The Edinburgh Flying Post' was commenced in 1708,
'The Scots Postman' in 1709, and 'The Northern
Tatler ' in 1710 ; and' ' The Edinburgh Evening Cou-
rant ' followed in 1718, and ' The Caledonian Mercury'
in 1720. Others were afterwards started, and some of

16t)0-1820. OLD SCOTCH NEWSPAPERS 381

these early papers did not live long ; but both ' The
Edinburgh Gazette,' as a counterpart to ' The London
Gazette,' and ' The Edinburgh Courant ' still exist.
' The Glasgow Courant,' founded in 1715, was less
fortunate than ' The Glasgow Journal,' which lasted
for a century and a half from 1729, while ' The Glasgow
Herald,' started in 1782, is still a flourishing paper.
In other parts of Scotland there was not much news-
paper enterprise in the eighteenth century. Only three
Scotch journals were published m 1745, and the number
was but thirteen in 1795. It had risen to thirty-one by
1820.

The earliest English country paper was ' The Lin-
coln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury,' started in 1695,
as soon as the law allowed. The next to appear was
' The Norwich Postman,' offered in 1706 for ' a penny,
but a halfpenny not refused ' ; and it was followed in
1714 by 'The Norwich Courant,' on which Cave, of
' The Gentleman's Magazine,' learnt the trades of print-
ing, writing, and editing, in 1720 by ' The Norwich
Mercury,' in 1721 by ' The Norwich Gazette,' and in
1723 by ' The Norwich Journal.' No other town of
such size was so well supplied at this time as Norwich ;
but already there were several prosperous country
papers, some of which have either kept alive as weeklies
to this day or been altered into daily publications.
' Berrow's Worcester Journal' dates from 1709,^ and
' The Newcastle Courant ' from 1711. ' The Liverpool
Courant' appeared in 1712, in which year an early
number announced the arrival of one ship and the
departure of one other, and contained two advertise-
ments, one of which was from ' a governess or female
teacher' who, besides giving instruction in reading,

' It claims to have been started in 1690, but not apparently on good
evidence.

382 AFTER TWO CBNTtlBIES ch. xirt.

' learneth young gentlewomen to mark, work, point,
make plain work, flourishiag, embroidery, and dressing
of heads after the newest modes and to the best advan-
tage.' This paper had short life in the ecclesiastical
village by the sea which Liverpool then was, and a
fresh start was made in 1756 by ' The Liverpool
Advertiser ' on the ground that ' it hath long time
been a matter of surprise to many that a place so re-
spectable in its inhabitants, so advantageous in its
situation, and so important in its commercial concerns,
should be without those weekly and pubhc methods of
conveying intelligence which are to be found in towns
of less considerable note.' Manchester was without a
newspaper till 1730 when ' The Manchester Gazette '
was started, but ' The Leeds Mercury ' was begun in
1718. It is noteworthy that the country towns which
showed most newspaper enterprise in the early part of
the eighteenth century were those which have long since
been surpassed as centres of activity. York had its
'Mercury' and Salisbury its 'Postman' in 1715
Exeter its ' Mercury,' its ' Protestant Mercury,' and its
' Postmaster or Royal Mercury ' in 1718, Northampton
its ' Mercury' in 1720, Chester its ' Courant ' in 1721,
and Gloucester its 'Journal' in 1722. It was to the
last-named paper that Cave sent his parliamentary re-
ports for which he was reprimanded by the House of
Commons in 1728. Reading had its ' Mercury ' in
1723, Chelmsford its 'Chronicle' in 1730, Derby its
' Mercury' in 1732, Sherborne its 'Mercury' in 1736,
Hereford its 'Times' in 1739, Ipswich its 'Journal'
in 1739, all before 1741 when Aris commenced his
'Birmingham Gazette.' Some of these small weekly
papers, however, found it difficult to fill their columns.
For lack of fresher matter ' The Leicester Journal ' in
1752 reprinted by instalments the Book of Genesis.

1695-1795. OLD ENGLISH COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS 383

Coiiatry newspapers began to be plentiful towards
tbe end of the eigbteenth century. Without reckoning
those which had appeared and disappeared in the inter-
val, there were fifty in 1782, sixty in 1790, and seventy-
two in 1795 ; and while most of them were merely
collections of local gossip, eked out with news taken
from the London papers, and advertising mediums, some
were ably conducted. James Montgomery, once highly
esteemed as a poet, became editor and part proprietor of
' The Sheffield Iris ' in 1794, and conducted it for more
than thirty years ; and the Baines's made their family
and their paper prosperous by their management of ' The
Leeds Mercury.' Most of these papers were Tory in
politics, under such guidance from the government as
has already been described ; but the fate of Drakard, of
' The Stamford News ' — which has also been referred to
■ — shows that on occasion they could be as outspoken
in their Radicahsm as their London exemplars. Many,
being issued only once a week, and making no attempt
at giving much criticism or any early news that was
not local, were edited in London by metropolitan jour-
nahsts with time to spare. ' It was better and more
congenial employment,' says Jerdan, ' to edit provincial
newspapers in London, which, absurd as it may seem at
first sight, is just as effective (with a sub-editor on the
spot for the local news &c.) as if the writer resided at the
place of publication ; for the political intelligence had to
come from town to be handled in the country, and it
was quite as easy and expeditious to have the news and
the commentaries sent down together. I edited " The
Sheffield Mercury " for a number of years, and at other
times a Birmingham, a Staffordshire Potteries, and an
Irish journal, and others in various parts of the
country.' -^

' Autobiography, vol. i. p. 110.

384 AFTER TWO CENTURIES oh. xnr.

There were fifty-six Irish newspapers in 1820, and
thirty-five in 1795, but only three in 1782. A daily
paper, ' Pue's Occurrences,' was started in Dublin in
1700, and another, 'Falkener's Journal,' in 1728 ; but
though 'The Belfast Newsletter' began in 1737, the
first important publication was ' Esdaile's Newsletter,'
afterwards called ' Saunders's Newsletter,' dating from
1745. It had a formidable rival in 'The Freeman's
Journal,' which iu 1755 appeared as the organ of the
United Irish party, and had Grattan and Flood amongst
its contributors, under the editorship of Dr. Lucas.
Several papers were started with special objects, to be
dropised m a few years, and for a long time no journal-
istic champion of the English government dared appear.
In 1780 a staff of writers, compositors, and printers, with
a press and types, were sent from London to Dublin, there
to commence ' The Volunteer Evenuig Post ' ; and when
it started it purported to be in sympathy with the Irish
people. Presently, however, its true policy began to
show itself, and thereupon the ofiice was attacked by
a mob, the editor put to flight, and the publication
stopped. Of the thirty-five papers issued ui 1795 every
one was anti-English, prominent among them being
' The Press,' edited by Arthur Young, with help from
Emmett, Addis, and others, in which Tom Moore, when
a youth of eighteen, made his first appearance as a
writer. ^ Another was ' The Union Star,' from which
Pitt's horrified supporters quoted such sentences as
this : ' Let the indignation of men be raised against
the impious wretch who profanely assumes the title of
reigning by the grace of Grod, and impudently tells the
world he can do no wrong' ; and this, addressed to ' the
noble and venerated name of Brutus ' : ' Yes, prince of
assassins ! thus we defend assassination, and clear it

' Lord Russell, Memoirs i-c. of Thomas Moore, vol. i. p. 55.

1700-1820. OLD JEISH NEWSPAPERS 386

from the rubbish of ignorance and falsehoods of despo-
tism, which were too often successful in confounding
the characters of the man who destroyed a tyrant and
him who, to gratify private revenge, or urged by ava-
rice, might sell himself to murder an innocent fellow-
creature.' ^

The tone of the Irish papers was somewhat altered
after the Union, but as much through the lavish bribery
resorted to by the government as from any change m
the sentiments of the people. In 1811 upwards of
12,000^. was spent, ostensibly in payments for the in-
sertion of government announcements iu loyal papers,
besides other subsidies less openly granted and qharged
for. To one Dublin paper alone iu 1819 an average of
lOZ. a week was paid ia consideration of its reprinting
portions of ' The London Gazette.' Irish newspaper
editing was as profitable as it was worthless in those
days, and the only newspapers iu any way representing
the feeliog of the Irish people were those rich enough to
pay their own way and courageous enough to brave the
prosecutions that, rarely entered upon before 1800,
were now proportionately as numerous ia Ireland as in
England.

Scotland fared better dm'ing the first two decades of
the nineteenth centuiy, the nearest approach to bribery
there attempted, with one exception, being the creation
of a siaecure for Dugald Stewart in 1806, when he was
appointed printer of ' The Edinburgh Gazette,' with a
salary of BOOL a year and the profits. This small job,
quite excusable under the conditions of the time, was
perpetrated by the Whigs during their brief tenure of
office. The other case of bribery occurred in 1820,
when money was found by the government for starting
' The Beacon,' intended to convert the Scottish Whigs

1 John Gifford, Life of Pitt, vol. iii. p. 244.
VOL, I. C C

386 AFTER TWO CENTURIES CH. xnr.

or Eadicals to Toryism, and Sir "Walter Scott was con-
cerned in the speculation. But it only lasted about
eight months, faiJing, it is said, through its intemperate
writers being allowed to publish whatever they chose
without editorial control. ' I endeavoured in vain,'
wrote John Wilson Croker, ' to impress on them the
necessity of having an editor who was really up to the
business, and could mix spirit with discretion — one of
those " gentlemen of the press " who understand the
exact length to which they can go in their vocation.'
In Edinburgh, where ' The Edinburgh Review ' was
commenced, in 1802, there was no dearth of Whig
talent to help the northern newspapers, of which the
foremost, after 1817, was ' The Scotsman,' started in that
year by Charles Maclaren, and edited by him for thirty
years, with the exception of two, during which his place
was taken by John Ramsay McCuUoch.

The history of the American press during the years
before the United States were separated from Great
Britain is interesting and instructive. It dates from
1704, when ' The Boston Newsletter ' was conunenced
by John Campbell as a retailer of European and local
news, and an advertisement sheet for the benefit of ' all
persons who have houses, lands, farms, tenements, ships,
goods, wares, merchandise, &c., to be sold or let, or ser-
vants run away, or goods stolen or lost.' After two
years Campbell had to inform his readers that he was
losing money by his speculation ' for the good of the
public,' and in 1715 he announced that 'if he received
a suitable encouragement, either under the form of a
salary, or by a sufficient number of subscribers who
would engage for the entire year, he would give a sheet
a week to circulate the news ; but in the absence of one
or other of these encouragements, he is reduced to do
the best he can.' The best he could do was during

1704-1722. OLD COLONIAL NEWSPAPERS 387

1719 to issue a whole instead of a half sheet every alter-
nate week in the hope of clearing up the arrears of
European news, which it was his plan to give iu the
order of date as far as space permitted, keeping back
from week to week so much as there was not room for.
' In January last,' he wrote at the end of 1719, 'we
were thirteen months behind with the foreign news, and
now we are less than five months, so that we have re-
trieved about eight months, and anyone that has " The
Newsletter" to January next (life permitted) will be
accommodated with all the news from Europe needful to
be known in these parts.' The Bostonians preferred to
have their news somewhat less than thirteen or even five
months after date, and iu 1719 ' The Boston Gazette '
was started in rivalry to Campbell's laggard paper.
' The Boston Gazette ' was at first printed by James
Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's elder brother, and when
the work was taken from him in 1721 he set up a third
paper, ' The New England Courant,' Benjamin, who was
then fifteen, being one of his apprentices.

' The Courant' was a bold journal, containing hu-
morous and satirical essays in imitation of Steele and
Addison, and in these the domineering puritans were
roughly handled, being called in one article ' the club
of the devils of hell.' An angry war consequently arose,
' The Gazette ' taking the side of the orthodox, with
the venerable Increase Mather at their head, and it ex-
tended beyond theological ground, or what other than
the puritans, who viewed everything in a theological
light, would have thought such. One quarrel, at its
height in January 1722, was as to the propx-iety of in-
oculating for small-pox, which ' The Courant ' opposed
and the puritans insisted upon. ' For myself, who have
seen New England from its commencement,' Mather
wrote in ' The Gazette ' concerning an article in ' The

388 AFTER TWO CENTURIES ch. xni.

Courant,' 'I cannot but be confounded with, the de-
gradation of this land. I remember the time when
the civil government would have taken efficacious
measures to suppress such an accursed pamphlet
as that. If stern measures are not taten, I have
great fear that some terrible judgment wUl weigh upon
the country, which the anger of Grod will not suffer to
be relieved, and for which there will be no cure. I can-
not forbear taking pity upon young Franklin. He is
young yet, but perhaps he may soon have to appear
before the judgment seat of Grod, and what excuse will
he give then for having priated such base and abomin-
able things ? And I ought in conscience to invite the
subscribers of " The Courant " to reflect upon the con-
sequences of being accomplices in the crimes of others,
and no longer to support this journal of perdition.'

James Franklin gave worse off"ence afterwards, and,
after being more than once reprimanded, he was tried
and adjudged guilty of blasphemy for having printed an
article in which it was said that ' too much religion is
worse than none at all,' that ' the world abounds with
knaves and villains, but of all knaves the religious
knave is the worst, and villanies acted under the cloak
of religion the most execrable,' and that ' the whole
country suffers for the villainies of such wolves in
sheep's clothing, and we are all represented as a pack
of knaves and hypocrites for their sakes.' He was for-
bidden to continue ' The Courant ' — certainly a milder
punishment than he would have received from an Eng-
lish court ; but his brother Benjamin was now old
enough to take his place, and the paper was carried on
tUl 1727, when Benjamin left Boston. James then
migrated to another colony, and conducted ' The Rhode
Island Gazette' from 1732 until his death in 1735.
Several other papers gradually sprang up in Boston,

1719-1750. OLD COLONIAL NEWSPAPERS 389

and the quarrel witli the puritans was maintained, until
all parties in the town combined to make it the head-
quarters of opposition to English tyranny. Samuel
Andrews, whose brother John was the second president
of the United States, edited ' The Independent Adver-
tiser,' which was a pioneer of revolt in 1748, and, when
that was suppressed, a new ' Boston Gazette.'

In the same year as the original 'Boston Gazette,'
1719, Philadelphia had its first paper, ' The American
Weekly Miscellany,' which was superseded in 1728
by ' The Pennsylvania Gazette,' projected by Benjamin
Franklin, but not edited by him till the following year.
This paper soon became a valuable property, and, being
allowed to be sent post free throughout the colony, an
influential organ of the local government. Others fol-
lowed in various parts of the new country, among them,
in 1736, ' The Virginia Gazette,' in defiance of the
opinions of its old governor, Sir WiUiam Berkeley,
who two generations before had exclaimed, ' Thanks be
to God, we have here neither free schools nor printing
presses, and I hope we may not have any for a hundred
years ; for education has sent into the world doubt,
heresy, and sectarianism, and the printing press has
propagated, in addition to all these evils, attacks against
governments.'

Berkeley's judgment was as correct in one respect as
it was faulty in another. The English adventurers and
exiles who colonised America took with them all the ex-
perience they and their forefathers had painfuUy acquired
in the mother country, and, quickly rivalling their kins-
men at home in newspaper enterprise, soon surpassed
them. Of the English- American papers established, or
begun and speedily abandoned, during the first half of
the eighteenth century, all but a few were, as might
be expected, inferior to the humblest of their English

390 AFTEK TWO CENTURIES ch. xm.

contemporaries ; but two or three decades sufficed to
give them, or their successors, dignity and authority, and
they played a very important part indeed in the war of
independence. The fight was bravely carried on, for
instance, by skilful writers in the loyal ' Massachusetts
Gazette ' and in the republican ' Boston Gazette,' and,
if the final and inevitable appeal to arms was hastened
on by such encounters with the pen, the right side was
only thereby enabled to win its certain victory more
promptly and with less bloodshed.

England was not wise enough, or it was too much
hampered by feudal traditions, aristocratic prejudices and
oligarchic burdens, to shake off the chains as easily and
effectually as its American offshoot ; but long after the
United States had taken an independent place among
the nations of the world, and could boast with reason of
its newspaper progress, as well as of its other successes,
English journalists, still struggling desperately for the
rights of free speech, were able to look across the Atlantic
for encouragement, and even for guidance.

William Cobbett, who had unique experience as
an English journalist in the newly-established United
States, vainly propounding to its citizens the virtues of
monarchism and the duty of renewing allegiance to
the British Crown, soon came back as an avowed
enemy of the republican institutions which gave no
sanction to his bluster; but his enmity was speedily
abandoned after further acquaintance with the aristo-
cratic and oligarchic system he had applauded from a
distance, and he developed into a noisy agitator for
many of the reforms that worthier men insisted npon
less violently. If he brought with him some of the
worst habits and methods of the young American jour-
nalism, however, he was not on that account less im-
portant, or less representative of the rowdyism necessarily

1820. LESSONS FKOM AMERICA 39l

incident to such revolutionary work as he favoured and
usefully helped on. It was the fault, not of Cobbett
and those who sided with him, but of the mischief-
makers iu office whom they opposed, that the revolution
had to be effected with rough as well as with polished
weapons, by disorderly and unreasonable as well as by
orderly and reasonable reformers. Happily for the
political and social progress of England during the past
two generations, and for the growth of journalism as
an essential part of that progress, they had promoters
not only of the coarser, but also of the finer sort.

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Queen Cophetlta.
One by One.
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Prifaced by Sir BARTLE FRERE,
Pandurang Hapl.

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The Capel Girls.

28

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Piccadilly Novels, continued-^ ,-
BY CHARLES GIBBON^
Robin Gray. | Fop Lack of Gold.
What will the World Say P
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Queen of the Meadow.
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Gideon Fleyco.

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Antonlna.

Basil.

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Woman In White.
The Moonstone*

30

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A Fight with Fortune.

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Hearts of Gold.

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A Castle In Spain.

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Our Lady of Tears. | Circe's Lovers.

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Roxy.

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Mead and Stream.
Loving a Dream.
A Hard Knot.

Robin Gray.
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James Duke.

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Dick Temple.

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Brueton's Bayou.

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Paul Wynter's Sacrifice.

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The Tenth Earl.
BY JULIAN HA WTHORNB.
Gcirth. ■ I Sebastian Stroma

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Fortune's Fool. | Beatrix Randolph.
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Ivan de BIron.

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The Lover's Creed.

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A Golden Heart.

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The House of Raby.

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Twlxt Love and Duty.

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Thornloroft'a Model.
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Self-Condemned,

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Fated to be Free.

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The Queen of Connaught.

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Colonial Facts and Fictions.

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A Drawn Game.
"The Wearing of the Green '■
BY HENRY KINGSLEY.
Oakshott Castle.

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Patricia KembalL
The Atonement of Learn Oundai.

CHATTO &• WINDUS, PICCADILLY.

31

Cheap Fopulah Novels, continvcd-r
E. Lynn Linton, continued—
The WoPld Well Lost. . /
Under which Lord P
With a Silken Thread.
The Rebel of the Family. '

"My Love."' ■ 1 ■ lone. '^

BY HENRY W. LUCY. .' ' ,
Gideon Fleycs. ^ ' . ^V(T

BY JUSTIN McCarthy. ' «

Dear LadyDlsdalii MIssMleanthrope

The Waterdale Donna Quixote.

Neighbours. The Comet of- B
My Enemy's" • Season.

Daughter! r.u . Maid of 'AthenS4 •'

A Fair Saxon. Cainlola.i - n 'ii-.-,'
Linley Rochford. • - • .,•,?:

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Quaker Cousins.

BY KATHARINE'S. MACQUOID.^
The Evil Eye. ' '| Lost Rose.

BY W.H. MALLOCK."''"-'^^
The New Republic. -

^BY FLORENCE MARRYAT.' - '
Open I Sesame I A Little Stejjsoii: -'
A Harvest of Wild Fighting the Air.
Oats. I Written In FIrei''

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Half-aKlozen Daughters. . t

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A Secret of the Sea. , ii

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Touch and Go. I Mr. Doi'lltlon.i
BY D. CHRISTIE MURRAY, "

ALIfe'sAtonement
A Model Father.
Joseph's Coat. '
Coals of Fire. '
By the Gate of the

Hearts]

Way of the World.

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Val Strange.

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The Unf&reseen.

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Whiteladies.

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Phoebe'si Fortunes. r ► n ?
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Wanda. '
Frescoes. '
■In Maremrda:" ■
Othmar. • ' -

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Gentle and Simple. : .- -
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Like Father, Like

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A Woman's Ven-,
geance..

Cecil's Tryst.

ClyfTards of ClyfTo

The Family Sckpe^
grace.

Foster Brothers. "

Found Dead.

Best of Husbands.

Walter's Word. •

Halves. f* i'

Fallen Fortunes.

What He Cost Her

HumorouaStories

Gwendoline's Ijaiv

' vest.

£200 Reward. > .

Him.
Mirk Abbey.
Not; Wooed, but

Wop.
Less : Black than
' We're Painted.'
By Proxy.
Under One Roof. '
High Spirits. •'^'
Canyon's Year.
A Confldehtia]

Agent. '

Some ^Private

Views. >'f' III ..
■From Exile.
A Grape from a
: Thorn.' ■ ' 't ?M
For Cash Only.
Kit; A Memon'. ' "
TheCanon's Ward
Talk of thefJ^wni

BY EDGAR A. FOB. . ".
The Mystery of Marie Roget: -ri: A

BY E. C. PRICE.
Valentino. • | The Foreigners.*^
Mrs. Lancaster's Rival. ^' <
Gerald. ' '■■>■ r.j- "'A ■

BY'CHARLES reads:
It Is Never ToO-^Late to 'Mend.
Hard Cash. | Peg Wbfflhgton. "i
Christie Johnstone. ''■ ■-
Grlfiltir Gaunfaa
Put Yourself In His Place.
The Double Marriage.
Love Me' Little, LOye Me Long. ,
Foul Play. , . . .

The Cloister and the Hearth.
The Course of Thue Love; '

Autobiography of a Thief.-'
A Terrible Temptation.-'
The Wandering Heir.
A Slmpleton^r I A Woman-Hater.
Readlana. - ] The Jilt. ,
Singleheart and Dpubleface..
Good Stories of Men andiothir
Animals. ■ j .

BY MRS. J. H. RIDDELLi '
■ Her Mother's Darling. '
Prince of Wales's Garden Party.
Weird Stories. '

The Uninhabited House. '
Falijy Water. '
The Mystery In Palace Gardens.

BY F. W. ROBINSON.
Women are Strange.
The Hands of Justice.

Cheap Pofdlar Novels, eontinued^

BY JAMES RUN CI MAN.
Skippers and Shellbacks.
Grace Balmalgn's Sweetheart.
Schools and Scholars.

BY W. CLARK RUSSELL.
Round the Galley Fire. ,
On the Fo'k'ste Head.
In the Middle Watch.

BY BAYLE ST. JOHM.
A Levantine Family.
BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.
Geisllght and Daylight.

BY JOHN SAUNDERS.
Bound to the Wheel.
Ono Against the World.
Guy Waterman.
The Lion In the Path.
Two Dreamers.

BY KATHARINE SAUNDERS.
Joan Merryweather.
Margaret and Elizabeth.
The High Mills.
Heart Salvage. | Sebastian.

BY GEORGE R. SIMS. ' ■
Rogues and Vagabonds.
The Ring o' Bells.
Mary Jane's Memoirs.'

BY ARTHUR SKBTCHLET.
A Match in the Dark.

By r. W. SPEIGHT.
The Mysteries of Heron Dyk^

BY R. A. STERNDALB.
The Afghan Knife.

By R. LOUIS STEVENSON.
New Arabian Nights. ;
Prince Otto. . i

Br BERTHA THOMAS.
Cresslda. | Proud Maisle.

The VlollnPiayer.

BY.W. MOY THOMAS.
A Fight for Life.

BY WALTER THORNBURY.
Tales for the Marines.
BY T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.
Diamond Cut Diamond.

BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
The Way We Live Now.
The American Senator.
Frau Frohmann.
Marlon Fay.
Kept in the Dark.
Mr. Scarborough's Family
The Land-Leaguera
The Golden Lion of Granpere.
John Caldlgate.
By FRANCES ELE A NOR TROLLOPE
Like Ships upon the Sea.
Anne Furness.
Mabel's Progress.

BY y. T. TROWBRIDGE.
Farneli's Folly.

Cheap Popolar Novels, emtitiued—

BY IVAN TURGENIEFP, &c.
Siories from Foreign Novelists.

BY MARK TWAIN.
Tom Sawyer.
A Pleasure Trip on the Continent

of Europe. .
A Tramp Abroad.
The Stolen White Elephant.
Huckleberry Finn.
' Life on the Mississippi-.

BY C. C. FRASER-TYTLER.
Mistress Judith.

BY SARAH TYTLER.
What She Came Through.
The B./*ide's Pass,
Saint Mungo's City. '
Beauty and the'Beast.

BY J. S. WINTER.
Cavalry Life. | Regimental lj9genda.

BY LADY WOOD.
Sabina.

VY EDMUND YATES.
Castatyay. | The Forlorn Hope.
Land bt Last.

ANONYMOUS.
Paul Feppoll.
Why Ppul Ferroli Killed his Wife.

P0PT7LAB SHILLma BOOKS.
Jeff Br!ggs's Love Story. By Bret

Harte.
The Twins of Table IMountain. By

Bret H/.ftTE,- ,

Mrs, Gainsborough's Diamonds. By

JUL".AN Hawthorne.
Kathleen Mavourneen. By Author

of " That Lass o' Lowrie's,*'
Linds:iy's Luck. By the Author of

" That Lass o' Lowrie's."
Pretty Polly Pemberton. By the

Author of " That Lass o' Lowrie's.'"
Trooping with Crows. By Mrs.

PiRXIS.

The Professor's Wife. By Leonard

Graham.
A Double Bond. By Linda Villari.
Esther's Glove. By R. E. Francillon.
The Garden that Paid the Rent.

By Tom Jerrold.
Curly. By John Coleman. IUus-

trateJ by J. C. Dollman.
Beycnd the Gates. By E. S. Phelps.
An Old Maid's Paradise. By £. S.

Phelps.
Burg.'ars In Paradise. ByB. S.Phelps.
Doom : An Atlantic Episode. By

JusriN H. MacCarthv, M.P.
Our Sensation Novel. Edited by

Justin H. MacCarthy, M.P.
A Barren Title. By T. VV. Speight.
Wife or No Wife." By T. W. Speight
The Silverado Squatters. By R.

Louis Stevenson.

J. oqden and CO., printers, J9, 30 AND ji, great saffron hill, e.o.

CHAPTERS

HISTORY OF JOURNALISM

VOL. II.

PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

LONDON

ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS

IN

^1)6 c^isfors of journalism

BY

H. R. FOX BOURNE

AUTHOR OF 'the LIFE OF JOHN LOCKE' 'a MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEv'

'ENGLISH merchants' 'ENGLISH SEAMEN UNDER THE TUDORS'

' THE STORY OF OUR COLONIES ' ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. IL

SToiiltrou

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1887

/ccrnellN

university

\ LIBRARY

CONTENTS

. OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.
CHAPTEE XIV.

UNDBB GEOEGE IV. 1820-1830.

PAGE

Lord Liverpool's policy — Queen Caroline and the newspapers — Theo-
dore Hook and 'John Bull' — More press prosecutions — The
Bridge Street Gang — 'The Morning Chronicle' under John
Black — ' The Times ' under Thomas Barnes and the second John
Walter — ^Walter's business enterprise — ' The Morning Herald '
and its police reports — The other morning papers — Croker's
newspaper work — ' The Representative ' — The commencement of
'The Standard'— 'The Courier' and Eugeuius . Eoche— ' The
Sun' under Murdo Young— 'The Traveller' and 'The Globe '
under Robert Torrens — The collapse of Tory journalism — The
Duke of Wellington and ' The Morning Journal' — The Radical
uprising 1

CHAPTEE XV.

THE EADICAL EEVOLT. 1826-1836.

The growth of Radicalism and its effects on journalism — Jeremy
Bentham and his pupils — Albany Fonblanque's work on ' The
Examiner ' — His treatment of political and social questions — His
strictures on the ministers of his day, and on George III. and
George IV. — Radicalism in other papers — Robert Stephen Rin-
toul, and 'The Atlas' and 'The Spectator' — Rintoul's Radi-
calism— ^Fonblanque and John Stuart Mill on parliamentary
reform — Opposition to the newspaper stamp duty — Henry
Hetherington and his comrades — ' The Poor Man's Guardian ' —
The outcome of Hetherington's work — Parliamentary debates on
the Newspaper Stamp Act — The reduction of the advertisement
tax, the stamp duty and the paper duty ..... 34

VI CONTENTS OF

CHAPTEE XVI.

BAENES AND HIS EIVALS. 1830-1841.

PAGE

The politics of 'The Times' during "William IV. 's reign — Its early
support of the Whigs — Its alliance Tvith the Tories — Lord
Brougham and the newspapers — Barnes's contract with Lord
Lyndhurst — Edward Sterling's leader writing — Sir Robert Peel
and Daniel O'Oonnell on ' The Times ' — Newspaper jealousies —
Changes in ' The Morning Chronicle ' — Black and his contribu-
tors ; Charles Dickens and others — Black's end — The other daily
papers — ' The Constitutional ' and its contributors ; Thackeray
and others — The -weekly papers — Alderman Harmer and ' The
Weekly Dispatch ' — The Melbourne administration and ' The
Times ' and ' The Morning Chronicle '—Thackeray and other
writers in ' The Times ' — The end of Barnes's work . . 69

CHAPTEE XVII.

WITH A PENNY STAMP. 1836-1850.

The cheapening of the high-priced newspapers — The demand for
really cheap papers — ' The Northern Star ' and the Chartist
movement — Unstamped periodicals — 'Punch' and comic jour-
nalism— 'The Illustrated London News' and its rivals — Edward
Lloyd and ' Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper ' — The News of
the World '— ' The Weekly Times '— ' Reynolds's Weekly News-
paper'— The other Radical papers — Frederick Lucas and ' The
Tablet '—Edward Miall and ' The Nonconformist '— ' The Guar-
dian ' and other religious and class newspapers — Railwaj's and
journalism— The growth of country newspapers — 'The Times'
and the overland mail — The electric telegraph .... 112

CHAPTEE XVIII.

THE EISE OP ' THE DAILY NEWS.' 1844-1854.

Dickens's new project — The origin of ' The Daily News ' — Its pro-
gramme— Its staff — The early numbers — Dickens and John
Forster as editors — Charles Wentworth Dilke's management —
Eyre Evans Crowe's editorship — ' The Morning Chronicle ' and
Lord Palmerston — ' The Chronicle ' as a Peelite organ — John
Douglas Cook's editorship — Henry Mayhew, Abraham Hayward,
and other contributors — The decadence of ' The Chronicle ' —
' The Daily News ' under Frederick Knight Hunt— Harriet Mar-
tineau's contributions — William Hunt's reporting . . . 140

THE SECOND VOLUME Vll

CHAPTER XIX.

' THE TIMES ' UNDEE DELANE. 1841-1855.

PAGE

Delane's position as editor of ' The Times ' — The change from Mel-
bourne to Peel as premier — The policy and the ' crotchets ' of
' The Times ' — Its opposition to Peel and Sir James Graham —
Delane's alliance ■with Lord Aberdeen-—' The Times ' and the
repeal of the corn laws — Delane's relations with Lord John
RusaeU's government — His opposition to Lord Palmerston —
From the second to the third John Walter — The growing power
of ' The Times ' — Some of Delane's contributors — Oobden on
' The Times '—The attitude of ' The Times ' towards Lord Aber-
deen's government — Its anticipation of the Crimean War — Wil-
liam Howard Russell as war correspondent — The strictures of
' The Times ' on the conduct of the war — Albany Foublanque on
the work of ' The Times ' — The overthrow of the Aberdeen go-
vernment— Prince Albert and the newspapers — ' The Times ' as
a revolutionist 164

CHAPTEE XX.

' THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.' 1849-1861.

The protests against the newspaper stamp duty, advertisement tax,
and paper duty — Milner Gibson's motions in parliament — The
Newspaper Stamp Committee — The progress of the controversy
— The abolition of the advertisement tax in 1853 — The repeal of
the Newspaper Stamp Act in 1855 — The condition of the leading
papers at that time — The abandonment of the paper duty in
1861 ... 209

CHAPTEE XXI.

THE MODEEN BEVOLUTION. 1855-1861.

Some newspaper movements concurrent with the fiscal reforms — The
commencement of 'The Saturday Review' — The rise of the
penny papers — ' The Daily Telegraph ' and its forerunners — 'The
Morning News' — ' The Morning Star ' and ' The Evening Star ' —
The re-shaping of ' The Standard ' under James Johnson— The
high-priced papers — 'The Morning Post' and Algernon Borth-
wick — The waning supremacy of ' The Times ' — The objects and
achievements of ' The Saturday Review '—Its early contributors
— Its influence on other weekly papers — ' The Examiner,' ' The
Spectator,' and others — Changes in the conditions of journalism —
The progress of ' Lloyd's Newspaper ' and other cheap papers —
The eflects of railways and telegraphs — Provincial journalism —
The Central Press and Router's Agency 232

viii CONTENTS OF

CHAPTEE XXII.

TWELVE YBABS OP PEOGEESS. 1862-1874.

PAGE

Modern expansions, variations, and innovations — 'The Times' and
Palmerstonian policy— Newspapers and the American civil war
— ^Cobden's quarrel with Delane — The progress of ' The Stan-
dard ' and ' The Daily Telegraph '—The failure of ' The Morning
Star ' — The cheapening and advancement of ' The Daily News ' —
' The Day '—The starting of ' The Pall Mall Gazette ' and ' The
Echo ' — Change of politics in ' The Globe ' — ' The Evening Stan-
dard ' — The country papers— The Press Association and other
news agencies — Newspapers and the Franco-German war —
Archibald Forbes and ' The Daily News ' — Other rivalries of
' The Times '—The faults of ' The Times '—Later days of ' The
Examiner ' — Press views of the first Gladstone administration . 261

CHAPTEE XXIII.

CLASS AND CLIQUE JOUENALISM. 1862-1886.

The growth of class newspapers — ' The Illustrated London News,'
'The Graphic,' and other pictorial papers — 'Punch' and other
comic papers—' Society journalism ' — ^Edmund Yates and
' Town Talk '— E. 0. GrenviUe Murray—' Vanity Fair '— ' The
Queen's Messenger ' — The commencement of ' The World ' — Its
professions and achievements — Its early imitators and rivals :
'The Whitehall Review,' 'Mayfair,' and 'Pan'— Henry La-
bouchere and 'Truth' — Other 'society journals'; 'Life,' 'So-
ciety,' 'Modern Society,' and 'Modern Truth' — 'Figaro' —

Changes in literary and scientific journalism — 'The Reader'

' The Academy' — 'Nature' — ' The Athenfeum ' — Professional and
trade journals — Commercial and financial papers : ' The Econo-
mist,' ' The Statist,' and others — ' The Field ' and other ' country
gentlemen's papers ' — Sporting papers : 'Bell's Life,' 'The Sport-
ing Life,' 'The Sportsman,' 'The Sporting Times,' and 'The
Sporting Clipper '—' The Era' and other theatrical papers'—
' The Referee ' — London suburban papers 294

CHAPTEE XXIV.

ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES. 1874-1886.

A crisis in political joumalism-^Gladstone's defeat in 1874 — News-
papers and the Russo-Turkish war — Delane's work on 'The
Times' — The retirement and death of Delane — 'The Times'

THE SECOND VOLUME IX

under Thomas Chenery — ' The Daily News ' under F. H. Hill —
' The Daily Telegraph '— ' The Standard ' under W. H. Mudford
— ' The Hour ' and ' The Daily Express '—The rise of ' The Daily
Chronicle '—Changes in ' The Pall Mall Gazette '— ' The St.
James's Gazette' under Frederick Greenwood — ' The Pall Mall
Gazette ' under John Morley and W. T. Stead—' The Echo ' and
other evening papers — The cheapening of ' The Morning Post '
— Clianges in the weekly papers — The Sunday papers : ' Lloyd's,'
'Reynolds's' and ' The Weekly Dispatch' — An experiment in
independent Badicalisiu — ' The People ' and other Sunday papers
— Newspaper policy during the second Gladstone administration
and since — 'The Times,' ' The Daily News,' and other London
jourjials — Developments in provincial journaUsiu . . . 326

CHAPTEE XXV.

NOWADAYS. 1887.

The present methods and conditions of journalism — The mechanism
of newspapers — Producers and consumers — Free-trade in journal-
ism— The business of news-collecting — Useful and mischievous
penny-a-lining — ' Own correspondents ' and ' special correspon-
dents ' — Journalists as social reformers and entertainers — Jour-
nalists as critics — Tittle-tattle in newspapers — Modern leader
writing — Newspaper politics ....... 307

INDEX ■ • .391

ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS

CHAPTER XIV.

UNDER GEORGE IV.

1820—1830.

As George IV. was virtually king during the nine
years of his regency, his assumption of the title
brought with it less apparent alteration in the state of
public affairs than had been incident to any previous
shifting of sovereigns. The actual change, however,
was great. Fifty months before, the peace of Paris had
formally concluded the long period of warfare which,
confusing and desolating all Europe, had brought
grievous trouble upon England, and, though those fifty
months were not sufficient for even a pretence of re-
storing order and repairing the evils that had been
brought on the nation, something had been done in
them to tighten the bonds of tyranny which the nation
was not yet able to burst. George IV., who had
played upon the Whigs, or allowed them to play
with him before he was regent, had come before he was
king to be in close alliance with the Tories, or at any
rate with the most genuine and thoroughgoing among
them. Matters seemed ripe, when his father died, for a
Tory supremacy in some respects more complete than
voii. n. B

2 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. iit.

had hitherto been known, and only the more galling
because it was resisted with a growing force which, as
it happened, was in little more than a decade to be
strong enough to overturn it. There was a constant
struggle going on throughout the ten and a half years
of this reign, in each stage of which newspapers per-
formed important, if inharmonious, functions, and it
ended in a crisis to which newspapers largely contributed.

Lord Liverpool, being in office nearly eight years
before the new reign began, had made full use of his op-
portunities for the repression of public opinion in all
ways, and notably in crippling and harassing such liberties
as the press had already in theory acquired. New laws
had been sanctioned by a too compliant parliament, and
old laws had been perverted by a servile judiciary.
New methods of corruption and intimidation had been
adopted when the old methods were obsolete or in-
effective, and if King George III. and his ministers could
have had their way they would have had no journals
printed which were not abject supporters of their policy,
propounding lies instead of facts, quibbles instead of
arguments, and fulsome adulation of the court and
government, and gross abuse of all who opposed them,
instead of criticism. Continuance of the same policy
was aimed at by the king and his ministers, and it an-
swered in some respects for a while, but in the main
it utterly broke down before the decade was over.

Striking evidence both of the strength and of the
weakness of journalism at this time, and of the inca-
pacity of court and courtiers, with all their terrorism
and all their wiles, to make the newspapers subservient,
or, when they were subservient, in any way useful to
them, arose out of the question which through more
than the first year of George IV.'s reign was of
absorbing interest to the public. Business of vastly

1820. QUEEN CAROLINE'S AFFAIRS 3

greater moment and evils "with, much more poison in
them were forgotten or ignored by most people in their
angry partisanship over the long-standing quarrel
between tbe king and his wife, which broke out with
fresh, violence in consequence of Queen Caroline's re-
turning to England after six years' absence to claim
her rank as royal consort, or, if that was refused, to
meet the charges brought against her. Her past as
well as her present troubles were partly due to her own
very unwise action ; but she was at any rate the lesser
offender and the greater sufferer of the two, and when
she set up the rival court at Brandenburgh House,
which, was an object of ridicule and abuse to all the
king's supporters, and a centre of agitation for all who
sided with her, these latter included a great many
more than the Radicals, who were most outspoken in
their sympathy. The official Tories, with the exception
of Canning, took the kkig's part, but grudgingly, and
with full knowledge that his reckless injustice could
only bring further discredit upon him. Canning's
picture of ' a government brought into contempt and
detestation, a kingdom thrown into such ferment^ and
convulsion as no other kingdom or government ever
recovered from without a revolution,' ^ was only exag-
geration of the truth. ' I think no administration with
any regard for him,' even Lord Eldon wrote concerning
the king in June 1820, ' will go the length he wishes,
as an administration, and if they will, they cannot take
parliament along with them ; that body is afraid of
disclosures, not on one side only, which may affect
the monarchy itself.' ^ But Eldon's warning was not
heeded. Lord Liverpool brought in his Bill of Pains
and Penalties in July, with a view of obtaining a

^ Stapleton, Life of Ccmning, p. 299.

* Twiss, Ufe of Lord Eldon, vol. ii. p. 372.

B 2

4 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. iiv.

divorce for the king, and depri-^dng the queen of her
rights and privileges ; but Caroline was so ably de-
fended by Brougham and Denman that, though the bill
obtained a third reading by a majority of nine in the
House of Peers, the government did not venture upon
proposing it to the Commons, and the measure was
abandoned in November ; to be followed, however, by
further insults and outrages, until the luckless and not
too deserving lady died of chagrin and despair in
August 1821. In October 1820 fashionable people,
like the Dowager Lady Yernon, had hoped that ' the
delightful queen ' would be ' disgusted sufficiently ' by
the outrages and insults already offered to her, and
would soon leave England. ' But,' added this polite
lady, ' the Eadical party will not suffer her to depart
till a little more mischief is completed. This will be
cooked up before the parliament meet for business, and
I have no doubt is now cooking. " The Times " are
giving a strong helping hand, no doubt.' ^

' The Times,' though for the most part a ministerial
organ, and prompted perhaps rather by a business-like
desire to move with the current of public opinion, for
which it was ah-eady conspicuous, than by any worthier
motive, was vigorous and persistent in its opposition
to the king and the government all through their pro-
ceedings against Queen Caroline ; and, strange as it may
seem, ' The Morning Chronicle ' was almost the only
respectable and responsible newspaper that did not take
the same line. ' The Chronicle ' was now edited by
John Black, who, as we shall presently see, was toO'
much of a philosopher and too anxious to distribute
even-handed justice to be diverted by popular clamour
or fickle sentiment from that pursuit of serious reforms
and that exposure of vital abuses to which he had

* The Journal of Mary Frampton, p. 318.

1820. THE ORIGIN OF ' JOHN BULL ' 5

pledged himself and his journal. But such slighting of
Queen Caroline's woes as ' The Chronicle ' seemed to be
gTiilty of, while it offended the public, yielded no satis-
faction to King George and his courtiers, and it was to
counteract the tide of newspaper sympathy with the
royal victim that ' John Bull ' was started.

The story of this newspaper's origin and early pro-
gress is as curious and instructive as it is ugly and
amusing. Theodore Hook had lately returned in dis-
grace from Mauritius, and was looking out for some
way in which he could make use of his venomous and
witty pen, when the Queen Caroline agitation began,
and when the king's partisans were impressed with
the necessity of doing something to oppose it. It
was by Sir Walter Scott, one of the most ardent of
these partisans, that Hook was selected, we are told,
' as a fit and proper person to make the thunder and
direct the storm that were to blast the budding hopes
of Radicalism.' Hook and some others, accordingly,
took counsel with the courtiers, and arrangements were
made to establish a paper ' in which a thorough sifting
of, and investigation into, the life and position of every
individual who appeared in the queen's society should
be published, and every flaw in the reputation, every
weak point in the family history of her adherents, duly
brought to light.-^ A nominal editor was appointed, at
a salary of three guineas a week, to correct the proofs
and act as ' legal lightning conductor to the concern,'
and a man, named Shackell, was induced to run the
risk of issuing the offensive sheet, on condition of his
■sharing the profits with Hook, Both risk and pi'ofits
were considerable.

The first number of ' John Bull ' appeared on De-
<;ember 17, 1820. Only 750 copies were at first issued,

1 Barham, Life of Theodore Book (1853 edition), pp. 140, 142.

6 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. xit.

as no more than that quantity of stamped paper had
been procured ; but a second edition was speedily called
for, and the type was kept standing to meet the great
demand. In the sixth week the circulation amounted
to 10,000. The new paper took the fancy of scandal-
loving people with money to spare ; and Theodore
Hook is entitled to all the credit attaching to the pro-
jector and continuator of such an obnoxious undertak-
ing. As his biographer and panegyrist says, with some
effrontery, ' any man reckless of legal consequences or
beyond their reach, familiar with the current scandal of
the day, and having so powerful an engine as a public
paper at his disposal, may inflict a vast amount of injury
upon his adversaries ; but to these conditions, in the
present case may be added powers, if not of the very
highest order, doubtless the best adapted to the pur-
pose, sources of information peculiar and inexplicable,
a singleness of purpose and firm conviction of its justice,
that combined to render " Bull " the most formidable
antagonist that had as yet entered the lists against the
queen.' ^ King George IV. told John WUson Croker
in January 1822, that ' neither he nor his ministers,
nor his parliament, nor his courts of justice, all to-
gether, had done so much good as " John BuU." ' ^

Parliament and the courts of justice, servile as they
then were, fell foul of ' John Bull.' In May 1821,
Henry Gray Bennett complained in the House of Com-
mons of a breach of privilege it had committed in print-
ing disparaging remarks about him, and the printer and
nomiual editor were committed to Newgate, where they
were detained for two months.^ In the following No-
vember, the two publishers were fined 500?. a piece in
the King's Bench Court, for libelling Lady Caroline

' Barham, pp. 142-45. » Croher Papers, vol. i. p. 246.

' Hansard's Debates, 1821, cols. 549, 589, 633, 656.

1820-1823. THEODORE HOOK AND 'JOHN BULL' 7

Wrottesley ; and during 1822 there were three other
libel cases in the same court, each resulting m a heavy-
fine, and one in three months' imprisonment as well.^

These various punishments fell on his associates,
not on Hook. His name was carefully kept out of the
list of persons responsible for the paper, and, though
his connection with it was well known, he arranged
that it could not be proved. When one day Sir Walter
Scott, who was sponsor to ' John Bull,' incautiously
said that no one but Theodore Hook could turn out
such clever articles as appeared' in it, Hook wrote in
assumed indignation to contradict the insinuation, and
added to his signed letter this unsigned paragraph :
' The conceit of some people is amusing, and it has not
been unfrequently remarked that conceit is in abund-
ance where talent is most scarce. Our readers wiU. see
that we have received a letter from Mr. Hook disowning
and disavowing all connection with this paper. Partly
out of good nature, and partly from an anxiety to show
the gentleman how little desirous we are to be asso-
ciated with him, we have made a declaration which will
doubtless be quite satisfactory to his morbid sensibility
and affected squeamishness. We are free to confess
that two things surprise us in this business ; the first,
that anything we have thought worthy of giving to
the public should have been mistaken for Mr. Hook's ;
and, secondly, that such a person as Mr. Hook should
think himself disgraced by a connection with " John
Bull.'/ ' The mystification was carried on next week.
'We have received Mr. Hook's second letter,' it was
then said. ' We are ready to confess that we may have
appeared to treat him too unceremoniously ; but we
will put it to his own feelings whether the terms of his
denial were not in some degree calculated to produce a

1 Andrews, British Journalism, vol. ii. pp. 108, 109.

8 UNDER GEORGE IV. oh. xiv.

little asperity on our part. We shall never be ashamed,
however, to do justice, and we readily declare that we
meant no kind of imputation on Mr. Hook's personal
character.' ^

That impudent dishonesty was in keeping with the
whole character of ' John BuU.' It was clever in its
way, fuU of scurrilous jokes, cruel slanders, and elabo-
rate falsehoods and falsifications skUfully kept up ;
and it was none the less successful — its profits being
estimated for some years at 4,000Z. a year, after de-
ducting the heavy fines and law expenses incurred —
because many were of the same opinion as Sir Robert
Ferguson, who in the House of Commons described it
as ' a stain on the public press of the country, a most
malicious, false, and rascally publication.' When the
special business for which it was started, the vilifica-
tion of Queen Caroline and her cause, was out of date,
Hook found other game to hunt. For a long while
Joseph Hume, who took the lead in calling for inquiry
into Hook's Mauritius defalcations, was a special object
of attack. Hook provided him with a motto, ' Graiis
expers catenis,' which he translated, ' I have got rid of
my Greek bonds,' and made numberless jokes upon his
name and his characteristics as a financial and political
reformer. The true rendering of Horace's ' Ne quis
Hum-asse velit,' Hook said, was ' Let no man call
Hume an ass,' and ' Humili modo loqui ' was trans-
lated as ' To talk Scotch like Hume.' Hook provided
his enemy with verses like these to sing : —

I hastened my genius to show-
Though I dealt not in figures of speech ;

But speaking of figures, -we know,
Is ever in Maberly's reach.'-'

' Barham, p. 153.

^ Maberly was a mild precursor of Joseph Hume as a financial
reformer.

1823-1828. 'JOHN BULL' AND ITS WRITERS 9

And 'tis O, what did become o' me ?

O, what did I do?
I proved, with a great deal of mummery,

One and one to be equal to two,

Wo, wo, wo, &c.

I wish I had stuck to my text,

My fame had continued alive ;
But alas ! I grew bold and tried next

To prove two and two to make five.
And 'tis O, what did become 'o me 1

O, what did I do ?
I swore it, and Walter and Finnerty '

Promised to bluster it through,

Ough, ough, ough, &c.'

Hook appears to have done most of the original
writing for ' John Bull ' during the first year or two,
-and he wrote in it some things that are still readable,
like ' The Ramsbottom Letters,' which were published
at intervals between 1823 and 1828. He continued to
write occasionally and to draw his half profits tUl his
death in 1841, but more work was done by others after
he had been sent to prison for his Mauritius frauds in
1823. At about this time Richard Harris Barham, best
known as Thomas Ingoldsby, who did not think it out
of keeping with his minor canonry of St. Paul's, began
to write much for the paper. His chief assistant was
Thomas Haynes Bayley, help coming now and then
fi-om James Smith, of the ' Rejected Addresses,' and
•other wits, and more sober articles being contributed
by Hook's elder brother John, who, as Fitz-Harding,
addressed a series of letters to contemporary statesmen,
and perhaps by his younger brother Walter Farquhar,
famous afterwards as a church historian. William
Magiim, who was brought over from Dublin to edit, at
a salary of 201. a month, a Wednesday companion to

■^ Peter Finnerty was at this time chief reporter on the staff of The
Morning Chronicle.

' Barham, pp. 165, 166.

10 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. xiv..

' John Bull,' ■which Theodore Hook projected but did
not produce, also wrote a little for the Sunday paper. ^

"While ' John Bull ' was not allowed by juries and
some of the persons it libelled to go scot-free, the anti-
ministerial papers were far more severely and frequently
punished for much milder offences, or for plain speech
which was only offensive because it was honest and
patriotic. It was John Hunt's condemnation and im-
prisonment for two years in May 1821, that caused a
crisis in the affairs of ' The Examiner,' and led to its
passing into the hands of the Reverend Dr. Fellowes —
a wealthy, enthusiastic, and noble-hearted Radical, who
had for some time been a sort of secretary to Queen
Caroline^ — and its temporary deterioration under the-
too youthful editorship of Henry Leigh Hunt.

The other Radical papers were assailed in every
way, and, as though Lord Liverpool's government was
not zealous enough in its persecutions, a society of"
extreme Tories, including forty peers and church digni-
taries, and calling itself the Constitutional Association,
but known by others as the Bridge Street gang, was-
formed in March 1821 to secure enforcement of the law
against all who ventured to question the wisdom of"
George IV. and his ministers. It was approved by
the king, who had written in the previous January
to Lord Eldon : — ' As the courts of law will now be
open within a few days, I am desirous to know the
decision that has been taken by the attorney-general
upon the mode in which all the vendors of treason and
libellers are to be prosecuted. This is a measure so-
vitally indispensable to my feelings, as well as to the
country, that I must insist that no further loss of time
should be suffered to lapse before proceedings be insti-

• Barham, pp. 169-162.

^ E. B. de Fonblanque, Life, and Labours of Albany FonUanque, p. 2T..

1821. KESTKAINTS UPON NEWSPAPERS 11

tuted.'^ The angry complaints of Whig politicians in
and out of Parliament, however, and the evidence
brought forward that its members, when not them-
selves jurymen, were tampering with juries and officials,
soon broke up the Bridge Street gang. In July it was
itself prosecuted for extortion and oppression, and,
though there was no conviction in this case, it ceased
to be mischievous as a body.^ Quite enough mischief
was done by its members as individuals, and by the
dvlj constituted authorities, to satisfy even George IV.
The opponents of the government found some
amusement in a small attack upon it with its own
weapons in February 1821, when Sir John Newport
called attention in the House of Commons to a breach
of privilege committed by ' The London Gazette,' in
stating that among the petitions presented to the king
was one from a Dumfries presbytery complaining of
' the violent and unconstitutional speeches of the oppo-
sition in both houses of parliament, and the infamous
scurrility and misrepresentations of a licentious press.'
The plea that this was only a record of a petition made
in the ordinary course was rebutted by showing that the
particulars had been picked out for publication, while
the details of other petitions were not given, and Lord
Castlereagh had to apologise for the misconduct of the
official newspaper. He retaliated in March by causing
complaint to be made against ' The Morning Chronicle '
for having printed the names of members who had
supported a motion for the reception of a petition from
a prisoner against the judge who tried him, with this
heading : — * The list of the minority who voted against
Lord Castlereagh's admonition to the people of England

'■ Cowrt and Cabinets of George IV., vol. i. p. 107.
^ Armual Register (1821), p. 205 ; Hansard, 1821, cols. 891, 1046,
1487-91 ; Knight Hunt, vol. ii. pp. 69, 70.

12 UNDER GEORGE IV. ca. xiv.

not to trouble and take up the time of the House of
Commons with their petitions.' Of this mild sarcasm
Lord Castlereagh declared that ' certainly a more de-
testable and wicked libel had never been published,'
but after a long debate the government had to submit
to the insult it had brought on itself^

The more powerful papers, like ' The Morning
Chronicle,' only gained by the contemptible efforts
of the king and his ministers to interfere with them.
They had much to contend against, however, and ' The
Chronicle,' which was at this time the boldest and
worthiest of them, suffered for its honesty. It had
been edited since 1817 by John Black, who, however,
had only partial control over it until 1821, when, on
James Perry's death, it was sold to William Clement,
who was already proprietor of ' The Observer,' ' The
Englishman,' and ' Bell's Life,' and who, conducting
those Sunday papers with independence, but rather as
weekly detailers of news than as organs of opinion,
allowed Black to go considerably beyond the Whig
traditions of the paper in his bold advocacy of reforms,
and yet more in his bold denunciation of abuses.

Black was a clear-headed, far-seeing Scotchman, an
ardent disciple of Jeremy Bentham, and an intimate
friend of James Mill. ' He played a really important
part in the progress of English opinion for a number of
years, which is not properly recognised,' John Stuart
Mill wrote in 1869 ; and he added, ' I have always con-
sidered him as the first journalist who carried criticism
and the spirit of reform into the details of English
institutions. Those who are not old enough to remem-
ber those times can hardly believe what the state of
public discussion then was. People now and then
attacked the constitution and the borough-mongers, but

' Hansard, 1821, cols. 288, &c.

1821. JOHN BLACK AND 'THE MORNING CHRONICLE' 13

no one thought of censuring the law or the courts of
justice, and to say a word against the unpaid magis-
trates was a sort of blasphemy. Black was the writer
who carried the warfare into these subjects, and he
broke the spell.' ^ ' Up to that time,' as Mill also
said, ' it was the almost universal creed of Englishmen
that the law of England, the judicature of England, the
unpaid magistracy of England, were models of excel-
lence, I do not go beyond the mark in sajnng that,
after Bentham, who supplied the principal materials,
the greatest share of the merit of breaking down this
wretched superstition belongs to Black as editor of " The
Morniug Chronicle." He kept up an incessant fire
against it, exposing the absurdities and vices of the law
and the courts of justice until he forced some sense of
them into people's minds. On many other questions he
became the organ of opinions much in advance of any
which had ever before found regular advocacy in the
newspaper press. Black was a frequent visitor of my
father, and Mr. Grrote used to say he always knew by
the Monday morning's article whether Black had been
with my father on the Sunday.' ^

Black's style was somewhat crabbed, and his judg-
ment hard.' If he instructed thoughtful readers, he
frightened away those who wanted to be amused, and
* The Chronicle ' lost as well as gained influence in his
hands, by acquiring a reputation of being duller and
more severe than it really was. Its philosophical con-
sistency made it seem inconsistent, and was irritating
to shallow and fickle people. They could not under-
stand why Black poured out indignation against the
authors of the Peterloo massacre, and jet wrote calmly

' Robert Harrison, in the Dictionary of National Biography, edited
by Leslie Stephen, vol. v. p. 108.

" Autobiography of John Stuart Mill, pp. 89, 90.

14 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. xit.

about Queen Caroline's grievances, and refused to admit
that she was a saint as well as a martyr. He offended
the Radicals by demolishing Cobbett's rhetoric and
questioning his honesty, and lie shocked the Whigs by
recognising virtue in Canning and declaring that
WeUington was sometimes in the right. He alienated
many readers, moreover, by paying scant attention to
theatrical and other concerns, in a paper in which
William Woodfall had patronised the playvrrights, and
which had had Hazlitt for its dramatic critic. These
and similar shortcomings were not atoned for by the
slashing articles contributed by Brougham, or Moore's
occasional squibs in verse. Black had an able con-
tributor, however, between 1821 and 1824, in Albany
Fonblanque, who was now making his mark in jour-
nalism ; ^ and among other contributors were James
Mill,^ and his talented and precocious son, who began
to write for ' The Chronicle ' when he was only about
seventeen. John Stuart Mill's first communications
were five letters, signed WickHffe, commenting on the
harsh treatment to which the Carliles had been exposed.
Three of these letters were published in ' The Chronicle '
in January and February 1823. ' The other two,' he
said, ' containing things too outspoken for that journal,
never appeared at all ' ; but besides these he wrote
much else, ' sometimes notices of books, but oftener
letters, commenting on some nonsense talked in parlia-
ment, or some defect in the law, or misdoings of the
magistracy or the courts of law.' ^ Another contributor,
supplying dramatic and literary criticisms, as well as
copious parliamentary reports and occasional leading
articles, was John Payne Collier, who appears to have

' lAfe and Labours of Albany Fonblanque, pp. 14, 63.
^ Bain, James Mill : a Biography, p. 212.
' Autobiography, pp. 88,89.

18121-1830. 'THE CHRONICLE' AND 'THE TIMES' 15

transferred his services from ' The Times ' to ' The
Chronicle ' after his difficulty with the House of Com-
mons in 1819. It was not till after 1830 that Collier
gave any sign of the craze for antiquarian forgery that
marred his good work and wrecked his reputation as a
painstaking and intelligent man of letters.^

The sturdy worth and honesty of ' The Chronicle '
placed it at a great disadvantage in its competition with
' The Times,' which, however, gave much offence in
those years to both Whigs and Radicals. ' It takes up
no falling cause,' it was said too harshly, but with much
truth, about ' The Times ' in 1823 ; ' fights no uphiLL
battle, advocates no great principle, holds out a help-
ing hand to no oppressed or obscure individual ; it is
"ever strong upon the stronger side ; " its style is
magniloquent, its spirit is not magnanimous.' And the
same severe critic added, ' It is elaborate, but heavy ;
full, but not readable. Stuffed up with official docu-
ments, with matter-of-fact details, it might be imagined
to be composed, as well as printed, with a steam-engine.
It is pompous, dogmatical, and fuU of pretensions, but
neither light, variable, nor agreeable. It sells more,
and contains more, than any other paper, and when you
have said this you have said all.' ^

Much as it was disliked by some, however, ' The
Times ' made wonderful progress from year to year,
under the joint care of the second John Walter, whose
enterprise in business ways had no limits, and of
Thomas Barnes, who was scarcely less enterprising as
an editor ; and many of the Whigs and Radicals who
condemned the ministry in ' The Chronicle ' wrote on
such subjects as their consciences allowed in the minis-
terial ' Times.' Albany Fonblanque was an occasional

^ G. F. Warner, in Bietionary of NaUonal Biography, vol. xi. p. 349.
2 Edmburgh Eemew, May 1823, pp. 362, 364.

16 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. xiv,

contributor,^ and Brougham was throughout many years
one of its regular leader-writers, at a salary of lOOl.
a month. In August 1822, when Brougham was ill,
Barnes proposed to Moore that he should temporarily
fill the post at the same scale of payment.^ Moore de-
clined that offer ; but he contributed plenty of verse,
and other verse came from Thomas Babington Macaulay.
Barnes was indefatigable in seeking out clever writers
and tempting them with better remuneration than the
other papers gave, and the same policy was pursued
as regards parliamentary and other reporters, Walter
refusing to be bound by a rule agreed upon by his rivals
which fixed the reporter's wage at five guineas a week.*
Among the leader-writers of ' The Times,' however,
Edward Sterling continued to be the chief ' thunderer,'
at his comfortable salary of 2,000^. a year, and on him
probably devolved the main duty of vehemently sup-
porting the government of the day in all its tyrannical
and perilous policy. Now and then, as in the case of
Queen Caroline, ' The Times ' ventured to be independ-
ent, or to follow the tide of popular opinion ; but as a
rule it was violently ministerial under Liverpool and
Canning and Wellington alike. Its Whig critic's scorn
was not unmerited, and all the reforms prepared for in
George IV. 's reign, and worked out to some extent in
William IV. 's, were achieved without its help, and in
defiance of its instructions.

Its policy paid well, and it profited by all its bold-
ness, which its timid contemporaries and rivals regarded
as reckless extravagance. It startled the world on
January 29, 18'J9, by appearing as a double sheet,

' Life mid Labours of Albany Foriblanque, p. 8.

^ Russell, Journal, Correspondence, and Memoirs of Thomas Moore,
vol. iii. p. 362.

' Knight Hunt, vol. ii. p. 196.

1820-1830. ' THE TIMES ' AND ' THE MOENING HERALD ' 17

giving forty-eight columns ia eight pages of the usual
size, instead of twenty-four columns iu four pages. That
"was in defiance of the Stamp Act ; but it was winked at
by the authorities, as no other and less loyal paper was
likely to follow the costly example, which necessitated
not only a double outlay in paper and print, but also a
troublesome and expensive change of machinery ; and
the freak was rarely repeated tiU the following reign,
when a double number of ' The Times ' generally ap-
peared once a week or oftener. The nearest anticipation
of it had been on June 22, 1821, when ' The Observer,'
giving an elaborate account of the coronation of
George IV., appeared as a double , paper, of which the
hitherto unparalleled number of 61,500 copies were
sold ; but in that case each of the two sheets was
stamped and charged for.

' The Morning Herald ' was for a few years the
most formidable rival of ' The Times,' not in the collec-
tion of foreign news or in the writing of vigorous
leaders, but in an extension of journalism which took
the public fancy. Until this time, though parliamentary
proceedings were reported fully, cases in the law or
police courts were seldom recorded, or only briefly
hinted at, unless at the conclusion of a trial its details
were considered interesting enough to be set forth at
length and in complete form. Police cases decided in
a few hours were frequently given, of course, if they
were deemed amusing, and as part of the current
scandal, in each morning's papers, but with no attempt
at thoroughness till ' The Morning Chronicle ' and ' The
Morning Herald ' set the fashion. But, whereas ' The
Chronicle ' reported serious cases in order to comment
seriously on them and insist upon necessary reforms,
' The Herald,' with a keener eye to present profit and
popularity, tried only or chiefly to be amusing or

VOL. II. c

18 UNDER GEOBGE IV. ch. xiv.

sensational in its excursions in this new field of
journalism. Thomas Wright, a reporter on the staff
of the latter paper, has the credit of making the change,
and government interference encouraged it. On
October 14, 1823, ' The Herald ' reported a Mansion
House case in which the captain of a vessel trading
to Honduras described the cruel treatment to which
emigrants were then subjected, and the disease, star-
vation, and premature death that ensued among them.
The lord mayor, who heard this statement, said it was
one to which the newspapers should call attention, and
' The Herald ' acted on his suggestion. Thwaites, the
principal proprietor of the journal, was thereupon pro-
ceeded against for libel by one of the promoters of the
emigration scheme whose honesty and humanity had
been impugned, and who obtained damages on the ground
that newspapers were not justified in repeating accusa-
tions made in a magistrate's court. This action was
soon followed by another of a similar nature, brought
by a solicitor named Duncan, in which ' The Herald '
was again punished for its zealous reporting ; and the
issues were in accordance with a ruling of Lord Ellen -
borough's in 1811, where ' The Day ' was concerned,
to the effect that ' it was libellous to publish the pre-
liminary examination before a magistrate previous to
committing a man for trial, the tendency of such a
publication being to prejudice the minds of jurymen
against the accused, and to deprive him of a fair trial.'^

1 Barnewall and Cresswell, Beports of Cases in the Court of King's
Bench, vol. ii. pp. 24, 556 ; Campbell, Nid Prius Cases, vol. ii. p. 563.
In June 1820, Clement, of The Observer, was fined for entitling a report
' Shameful Conduct of an Attorney,' and in June 1821, Walter, of The
Times, was condemned for summarising the evidence at a trial by saying,
'The witness proved the allegations contained in the speech of the
learned counsel.' ' The defendant,' said Chief Justice Abbott, ' ought to
have detailed and transcribed in the publication the' evidence of the wit-
ness. If he had done so his readers might then have judged for them-

1820-1830. 'THE HEEALD ' AND 'THE NEW TIMES' 19

Thwaites defied the law, however, and his police
reports — some of which were republished in 1824 by
Wright in an amusing volume entitled ' Mornings at
Bow Street ' — became a great attraction. The circula-
tion of ' The Morning Herald,' only about 1,500 in
1820, was increased five-fold in the course of the next
eight years,^ and Wright was rewarded with a share in
the property he had done so much to improve. For
the first time in its history ' The Herald ' became an in-
fluential paper, and, being too Liberal in its politics to
please the Tories, and ceasing to be an unscrupulous
supporter of G-eorge IV., in whose interests, while he
was Prince of Wales, it had been established by Bate
Dudley, it was now much less disreputable than for-
merly.

The old functions of ' The Morning Herald,' as a
mere dispenser of ' fashionable intelligence ' and aris-
tocratic tittle-tattle of all sorts, devolved on its Tory
rival, ' The Morning Post,' which, with a small and
still dwindling circulation, was only able to pay its
way by reason of the extreme cheapness of the matter
provided in it. But it was of slight importance
as a ministerial organ ; and in yet worse condition
was the other and more pretentious Tory paper ' The
New Times,' which Dr. Stoddart had started in 1817.
Stoddart abandoned journalism in disgust, and went
in 1826 to retrieve his fortunes as chief justice of
Malta, a post for which he was better fitted than for
that of special pleader for the Tories in the columns of
a newspaper, and in which he was but scantily re-
warded for his long services ; and ' The New Times,'

selves. If a party is to be allowed to publish what passes in a court of
justice he must publish the whole case, and not merely state the conclu-
.sion which he himself draws from the evidence.' — Barne wall and Alderson,
JJeports, vol. iii. p. 702 ; vol. iv. p. 605.

' Westminster Bemew, January 1829, p. 221.

c 2

20 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. xit.

bankrupt in 1828, was resuscitated for three years as
' The Morning Journal.' Neither this paper, under
either of its titles, nor ' The Post,' however, brought
anything but discredit on the party in office ; and,
though the party was supported by ' The Herald,' with
its circulation, in 1829, of something like 8,000, and
by ' The Times,' of which more than 10,000 cojjies were
sold each day, while ' The Chronicle ' issued barely
4,000,^ the government was at this time without a
champion to its liking in the press.

There is grotesque evidence of this, and also of the
way in which at an earlier period the party had managed
to get served in the newspapers, in a letter written by
John Wilson Croker, in August 1829, to a friend who
consulted him about starting a new Tory journal
under ministerial patronage. Croker, it Avill be remem-
bered, was the Rigby of ' Coningsby,' whom Lord
Hertford, called Lord Monmouth in Disraeli's novel,
had ' bought.' ' He bought him, with his clear head,
his indefatigable industry, his audacious tongue, and
his ready and unscrupulous pen ; with all his dates, all
his lampoons, all his private memoirs, and all his poli-
tical intrigues.' ^ Croker, now forty-eight, and soon to
resign his twenty-two years' secretaryship of the
Admiralty, had written for ' The Times ' as fer back as
1801, when he addressed to it a series of letters on the
French Revolution,' and had kept up acquaintance with
the Walters, father and son, ever since. It was evi-
dently to ' The Times ' especially that he alluded in this

• Gibbons Merle, in Hie Westminster Bemetv, January 1829, pp. 216,
217, who tells us that the entire circulation of the seventeen daily papers
then published was about 40,000. The morning papers were, in their
order of commercial value, Tlie Times, Morning Herald, Morning Adver-
tiser, Morning Journal, Morning Post, and Public Ledger ; and the even-
ing papers, The Globe, Courier, Sun, British Traveller, Standard, and Star.

' Coningsby, chapter i. » Croker Papers, vol. i. p. 8.

1820-1830. CROKER AS A JOURNALIST 21

curious letter. ' I have heretofore,' lie said, ' conveyed
to the public articles written by prime and cabinet
ministers, and sometimes have composed such articles
under their eye. They supplied the/ac^ and I supplied
the tact, and between us we used to produce a consider-
able effect.' He did not give his fi-iend much en-
couragement or any promise of help in the proposed
venture, but he added, with the authority of a veteran
in this sort of work, ' If anything of the kind were
practicable, it ought to be done in the most profound
secrecy, and every possible precaution against even a
suspicion should be taken ; and the minister who should
undertake it and you — his " conveyancer," as Junius
calls it — should throw in here and there such a slight
mixture of error or apparent ignorance as should
obviate suspicion of its coming from so high a source.
When I used to write, I lived altogether with my poli-
tical friends, and knew what I was doing, and what
ought to be said. The success of that period, of which
I was a humble though an active agent, was so com-
plete that it turned the press — I mean the preponder-
ating part of the press — ^right round. The govern-
ment had the voice of the journals, and the opposition
(what had, I believe, never before happened in the
history of English parties) — the opposition complained
loudly of the licentiousness of the press ; which only
meant that they were no longer able to wield it to their
own purposes.' ^

The only sort of press licentiousness that minis-
terialists approved was now beyond their contrivance,
the reason being that the Tory party itself was getting
beyond the control of any minister. The king's per-
sonal views alienated from him many zealous supporters
of the crown ; such popularity as he had formerly
' Croker Papers, vol. ii. pp. 22, 23.

22 UNDEE GEORGE IV. ch. xiv.

enjoyed was shattered for ever by the Queen Caroline
scandals ; and his stubbornness on the Catholic eman-
cipation question, though shared by the majority of
the Tories, was resented by the more enlightened and
more prudent members of the party. So long as Lord
Liverpool remained in office there was no open breach,
but when he was struck down in 1827, the Duke of
Wellington, Peel, and all the old-fashioned Tories held
aloof while Canning formed the promising administra-
tion which his own death put an end to before it was
four months old.

It was in anticipation of these troubles that two
bold efforts were made — one successful, the other a
notable failure — to start new Tory papers. In 1825
John Murray, the publisher, well pleased with the
progress of ' The Quarterly Review ' under William
Giflford's editorship since its commencement in 1809,
projected a daily paper through which Tories of
Canning's school should instruct the woiid. ' The
Representative,' pompously heralded and lavishly
prepared for, made its appearance on January 25,
1826.^ Dr. Maginn was sent to Paris as one of its
foreign correspondents, and several other writers were
engaged at high salaries ; but neither the money nor
the brains expended on it made it in any way ac-
ceptable to the public, and after some 15fi00l., it is
said, had been thro-mi away, it was discontinued on
July 29."

' Another Representative, a Sunday paper, had been started in January
1822 by Murdo Young, sometime proprietor of The Sun, but it only lived
throughout the year.

" An absurd statement has been repeatedly made, and was amplified
in James Grant's Newspaper Press, that Benjamin Disraeli was editor of
The Representative. The only plea for believing this rumour is that he
never took the trouble to contradict it. Disraeli, not more than twenty-
one or twenty-two, was at this time writing the first volume of Vivian
Chey, and occupying his leisure by playing the dandy in such Whiggish.

1827. THE ORIGIN OF 'THE STANDARD' 23

The other, a more prosperous journal, was ' The
Standard,' an offshoot of ' The St. James's Chronicle,'
which had existed ever since 1761, as a thrice-
a-week evening paper, and of which Charles Baldwiu
had for some time been proprietor, with Stanley Lees
Giffard as editor. At the instigation of the Duke of
Wellington, Peel and others, who were not satisfied
with ' The Courier,' and anxious to have a vigorous
organ which, besides in other ways opposing the Can-
ning section, should be particularly zealous in resist-
ing the movement for Catholic emancipation, Baldwin
started ' The Standard ' on May 21, 1827. Ably edited
by Giffard, who was helped first by Alaric Attila
Watts and afterwards by Dr. Magian, ' The Standard '
soon became the chief Tory evening paper. It was too
enterprising for its patrons, however. It was only seven
months old when great commotion was caused by an in-
judicious article published a fortnight before the Duke
of Wellington's supersession of Lord Goderich, who had
ventured to take Canning's vacant place. Wellington,
while out of office and not loth to embarrass those whom
he regarded as traitors in the Tory camp, had felt him-
self free to express his genuine thoughts about Catho-
lic emancipation and other questions, both in, his own
speech and by proxy ; but on the eve of his premier-
ship, and with the consciousness that the long-deferred
concession to the Irish people could not be much further
procrastinated, his attitude was different, and he was
not pleased by the persistency or consistency of his
nominees on ' The Standard.' The irrepressible Croker

and nondescript society as Lady Blessington brought together. Had he
had anything to do -with The Representative his friends or enemies would
certainly have placed the fact bfiyond doubt ; but it is easy to suppose
that in later years his vanity was humoured by the ridiculous story. It
is possible, but not likely, that his father had something to do with the
papei*.

24 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. xit.

' saw Herries ' on January 2, 1828. ' We talked about
a paragraph of about ten days ago in " The Standard," '
he reported, ' which proclaimed that the Tories could
not come in without stipulating for the dismissal of
the lord steward (Conyngham). We agreed as to the
mischievous effect of that paragraph, as it was known
that the Duke of Wellington and Peel countenanced
that paper, and he told me that a certain person took
cai'e that it should go down to Windsor the very night
it was published.' ' The king is so displeased with
Peel,' Croker wrote to his patron. Lord Hertford, ' and
so indignant at that paragraph in " The Standard," that
he is, they say, resolved to continue what he calls a
mixed government, but from which all Tories will
recede.' The Duke of Wellington lost his temper over
this business. ' What can we do with these sort of
fellows ? ' he exclaimed. ' We have no power over
them, and for my part I will have no communication
with any of them.' ^

Wellington was appointed premier on January 8,
however, notwithstanding the harm he thought ' The
Standard ' had done to him, and he had many com-
munications afterwards both with it and with other
papers ; and ' The Standard ' flourished, though some
time passed before it could oust even ' The Courier '
from its place as the evening spokesman for the crum-
bling Tory party. ' Saw Peel,' Croker wrote in his
diary for February 9, 1829, ' who begged of me to
insert in " The Courier," as from myself, his letter to
the vice-chancellor of Oxford. I did so, and sent with
it a few complimentary words, but in the character of
the editor.' ^

In 1814 and thereabouts Croker had joined with

• Croker Papers, vol. i. pp. 397, 399. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 9.

1827-1830. 'THE STANDARD' AND 'THE COUEIER ' 25

Peel and Palmerston, he tells us, in contributing
' political squibs and lyrics ' to ' The Courier ' ; but even
such help, and the more solid assistance it obtained
from official sources, did not make it a successful or
influential paper. Its fortunes were not improved by
the energy of William Mudford, an old friend of John
Black's, who edited it during several years before 1828,
and who failed in his efforts to adapt its policy to the
varying tactics of the Tories in office.

The career of Mudford's successor was a melan-
choly example of the misfortunes, by no means rare, of
Tory journalists. Eugenius Roche had been for some
time reporter and, during a year or two, editor of ' The
Day ' before 1810, when he was imprisoned for a year
for libelling Sir Francis Burdett, this being one of the
few instances of Tories sharing the punishments that
were so frequently incurred by Radicals. In 1813 he
was employed on ' The Morning Post,' of which he
became editor in 1817, and he gave to it, as he said,
' every hour of his time and almost every thought of
his mind' till 1827, when he unluckily accepted the
■editorship of ' The New Times,' lately vacated by
Stoddart. It was a condition of his appointment that
he should take shares in the concern, but he had
scarcely entered on his duties before he found that he
had thereby rendered himself responsible for old debts,
which swallowed up all his scanty savings and left
him penniless. When ' The New Times ' was converted
into ' The Morning Journal ' in 1828, he went to edit
' The Courier,' which was partly owned by the same
proprietors. That post, however, he only held for less
than two years, and the salary of 1,000Z. a year paid
or promised to him was not sufficient for his needs.
' Trembling for the ruin which impended over his
family,' we are told, ' and expecting each day to be

26 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. xit.

consigned to the grasp of the myrmidons of the law,'
he died of what is called a broken heart when he was
barely more than fifty.^ Soon after his death in 1830,
and on the collapse of ' The Morning Journal ' and the
ruin of its Tory proprietors, ' The Courier ' was bought
by the Whigs, and began to be somewhat more pros-
perous as an exponent of diiferent politics.

Another, and sometime notorious, Tory evening
paper, ' The Sun,' had already changed its ^politics
and entered on a fresh lease of life, its circulation being
quadrupled between 1825 and 1829.^ Its new pro-
prietor was Murdo Young, a pioneer in one phase
of modern journalism. Until his time the evening-
papers, as they were called, generally published early
in the afternoon, gave little more in the way of news-
than selections or epitomes of matter contained in the
morning journals, with the addition of such original
articles as could be procured at small price. ' The^
Courier ' had set the fashion fifteen or twenty years
before, during the later stages of the Napoleonic war,
of issuing second, and sometimes even third, editions,
when it had scraps of fresh intelligence to offer ; but
these supplementary editions were irregular, and often,
were catchpenny productions. When Murdo Young
altered the politics of 'The Sun,' he also altered its
business arrangements. He laid himself out for pub-
lishing late news, keeping his men at work if necessary-
till eleven o'clock at night, in order that he might
publish on the same evening a report several columns
long, it might be, of the day's proceedings in parlia-
ment, or special communications from the provinces
or from the continent. The innovation was acceptable-

' Roche, London in a Thousand Yea/rs, and other Poems ; prefatory
memoir (1830).

^ Westminster Review, January 1829, p. 221.

1825-1830. ' THE SUN ' AND ' THE GLOBE ' 27

to readers in London, and yet more in the country.
Young established a system of expresses stretching
all round London, and even as far as Manchester and
Bristol, and "was thus able to anticipate the morning
papers by at least twelve hours, both in the collection
and in the distribution of news. This was no slight feat
to perform in days when there were no telegraphs and
not even any railways, and when the General Post
Office was a nest of jobbery, always dilatory and never
to be depended upon.^ Now and then Young's zeal
led him into error, as in 1828, when he obtained before-
hand from Richard Lalor Shell the text of a speech
on Catholic emancipation which Shell had prepared
for delivery in Surrey, and published it overnight, to
learn next morning that the speech had never been
spoken." But such accidents were rare, and when they
happened they only helped to advertise ' The Sun.'

The ablest and the most successful of the evening
papers in George lY.'s time, however, was ' The Globe,'
especially as it profited by aU the experience of ' The
Sun,' and now improved on its example in the matter
of news, besides surpassing it as a guide and in-
■ structor of public opinion. Started in. 1803, along
with ' The British Press,' and both journals being under
the same editor, George Lane, ' The Globe ' was during
several years a respectable but unimportant organ of
the booksellers' trade, containing literary advertise-
ments and general news, and paying very little atten-
tion to party politics. In this respect it was surpassed
by ' The Travellei',' which, commenced at about the
same time, and skUfuUy edited by Edward Quia, soon
became more than a trade journal issued in the interests
of commercial travellers. Colonel Robert Torrens, an

' Westminster Beview, January 1829, pp. 230, 231.
^ James Grant, The Newspaper Press, vol. i. p. 334.

28 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. xit.

officer of marines who distinguished himself during
the long war with France and, unlike most military-
men, was taught Eadicalism by experience of soldier-
ship, became a pi'incipal proprietor of ' The Traveller '
after his fighting work was over, and used it for en-
forcement of the opinions he had arrived at in politics
and political economy. He found a congenial editor
in Walter Coulson, who had formerly been amanuensis
to Jeremy Bentham, and was a zealous Benthamite
through life. It was in ' The Traveller ' that John
Stuart Mill, when he was scarcely more than sixteen,
near the end of 1822, made his first appearance in
print. ' Colonel Torrens wrote much of the political
economy of his paper,' said Mill, ' and had at this
time made an attack upon some opinion of Ricardo
and my father, to which, at my father's instigation, I
attempted an answer, and Coulson, out of consideration
for my father and good will to me, inserted it.' Torrens
replied to this criticism, and a further rejoinder from
the young controversialist appeared in this 'liberal
journal.^ On January 1, 1823, however, ' The Traveller '
was absorbed in ' The Globe,' which, ' The British Press '
having been dropped as an unprofitable speculation, *
had been bought by Torrens and his friends, and from
that day it appeared as ' The Globe and Traveller.'
During the next five years Torrens bought up five
other papers, ' The Statesman ' and ' The True Briton,'
both of long standing but small circulation, ' The
Nation,' and ' The Evening Chronicle ' and ' The Argus,'
both of which had lately been started by James Silk
Buckingham,^ an indefatigable newspaper projector,
whose only successful venture — successful in other
hands — was ' The Athenasum,' dating from 1828.

' Autobiography of John Stuart Mill, pp. 87, 88.
' Westminster Review, January 1829, p. 221.

1825-1830. THE COLLAPSE OF TORYISM 29

' The Globe,' in the editorship of which Gibbons
Merle soon succeeded Coulson, acquired great import-
ance in Torrens's hands. Less enterprising as a col-
lector and prompt dispenser of news than ' The Sun,'
it became a vigorous exponent of Whig opinions,
and opinions too advanced for the majority of Whigs.
The evening associate of ' The Morning Chronicle,' it
laboured as zealously for the overturning of the Tory
rule, and while that rule lasted, for the promotion of
reforms obnoxious to the Tories. Of the good work
done by both papers we shall see something presently.

Of the rapid collapse of Toryism during the second
half of George IV.'s reign, though not of its extinction,
or much weakening to the traditions and prejudices
that were soon to appear in altered forms, clear evi-
dence was given in many ways, but there was no clearer
evidence than came from the scant supply and poor
quality of Tory journalism at this time. While there
was much that was faulty and offensive in the Whig
and Radical newspapers, these were plentiful, and
showed no lack of energy ; but the Tory newspapers
were few and feeble, as well as faulty and offensive.
Among nearly three dozen weekly papers now published,
many of them paltry and short-lived, there were
several that bravely and effectively opposed the Can-
ning, Goderich, and Wellington administrations, aU
three of which were included in a term of barely more
than three years. The only ministerial supporters of
any note, however, were ' John Bull ' and its rival in
coarseness ' The Age,' which was started in 1825, and
these two were at feud with one another and with the
daily papers of the same politics, among which also there
was no cohesion or agreement. ' The Times ' was by
far the most powerful of aU the journals now published,
and it generally used its power against the opponents

30 UNDER GEORGE IV. ch. xiv.

of the government, but it was in no sense at this time a
government organ. The Duke of Wellington's worthiest
champion was ' The Standard,' but it was still young
and weak. ' The Standard,' it was said by a competent
critic in 1829, ' probably owes its success to the fluc-
tuating policy of " The Courier " at the period when the
seeming liberalism of the Government led to a sort
of coquetry with a better and higher policy. " The
Standard" was set up by the old Tories when they
had not a decided organ in the whole of the London
press, with the exception, perhaps, of " The Morning
Post," which has of late years been in the main a con-
sistent Church and State advocate of high ultra politics.
" The Courier," under the direction of another editor^
than the gentleman who now obeys the mandates of the
Treasury, had fluctuated between Canning and Eldon,
Wellington and Huskisson, Tory principles and Liberal
principles, until its old staunch Tory subscribers began
to leave it in great numbers, whilst its liberality was
thought of such young growth that it had no accession
in numbers from persons of the opposite party. In this
state of things " The Standard " was set up; and although
for a time its success, notwithstanding the skill of the
writers employed upon it, was doubtful, it may now be
considered to have succeeded.' ^

' The Morning Journal ' did more harm than ' The
Standard ' could do good to the Tory cause, however,
and in kicking it out of his way, the Duke of Welling-
ton stumbled considerably towards his own ruin. ' The
Morning Journal ' was a persistent railer against Wel-
lington from the time when, not daring longer to resist
the demand for Catholic emancipation, he introdiiced a
measure to that intent in the session of 1829. The bill

' William Mudford, who preceded Bugenius Roche.
'' Westminster Beview, January 1829, p. 229.

1829. WELLINGTON AND 'THE MORNING JOURNAL.' 31

was passed in April, but not accepted as a favour by
tlie Msb Catholics and English Whigs and Radicals
who had so long been insisting on it. Those Tories
who resented it found no excuse for the Premier in the
exigencies to which he had yielded. Their bitterness had
vent in ' The Morning Journal,' and one particularly
angry article appeared in the number of May 14, which,
however, referred particularly not to the Catholic Relief
Act, but to Wellington's supposed influence over the
king in other matters. ' George lY.,' it was said in this
article, ' was till now a popular monarch. That he
has been rendered otherwise is the act of his imperious
minister.' ' There never was a more ambitious or a more
dangerous minister in England than the Duke of Welling-
ton,' it was further asserted. ' But if his ascendency over
the monarch be such as it is, or rather such as it is repre-
sented to have been, then we are sure that national sym-
pathy must spontaneously flow towards the king. The
people must feel intensely the restraints put upon the
-sovereign, and regret that, overflowing with goodness as
he is, kind to excess, fondly attached to his subjects, and
paternally anxious to see them all prosperous and happy,
he cannot mingle with their public entertainments or
receive those congratulations which must be gratifying
to his majesty in the course of existence. But his
majesty may yet have strength and intrepidity to burst
his fetters, dismiss from before his throne evil coun-
sellors, and assume that station in public opinion which
befits a popular monarch.'

For those spiteful sentences, containing more irony
against King George IV. than the writer can have
intended, the Duke of Wellington foolishly instituted
proceedings against the printers of ' The Morning
Journal,' and the case came on for trial, along with
another against the same paper, upon which the verdict

32 UNDER GEOEGE IV. cu. xiv.

was more disastrous to it, on December 2'i^. After
three hours' consideration the jury found that the king,
but not his minister, had been libelled, and strongly-
recommended the prisoners to mercy on the ground
that the conduct of the minister called for public repre-
hension.^ This, as Charles Greville said, was ' tanta-
mount to a defeat of the prosecution on this charge, and
amply proves the folly of having instituted it at all.'
' The whole press have assisted upon this occasion,'
Greville reported, ' and in some very powerful articles
have spread to every corner of the country the strongest
condemnation of the whole proceeding,' and he added
that Wellington's unpopularity was certain to be in-
creased by his inability to retaliate, ' not that he would
be sorry to adopt any measure which should tend to
fetter free discussion, and submit the press to future
punishment ; but this would be a fearful war to wage,
and I do not think he is rash enough to undertake such
a crusade.' ^

Wellington's soldierly statesmanship was not equal
to that enterprise ; but he did other reckless things,
and, scorned by his own party and its feeble representa-
tives in the press, and openly jeered at by the news-
papers that were not Tory, he hastened on the crisis
to himself and the Toryism of that day which a more
prudent politician could not have long deferred. It
was his refusal to accede to the popular demand for
reform of the civil list which immediately caused his
overthrow after a new parliament had been elected as
a consequence of William IV.'s accession. ' Hated,
despised, derided, covered with every species of dis-
grace,' Albany Fonblanque then wrote in ' The
Examiner, ' ' the Wellington administration has
fallen — an example and a warning to statesmen of the

1 Uxaminer, December 27, 1829. " GreviUe Memoirs, vol. i. p. 259.

1829-1830. THE RADICAL UPRISING 33

controlling genius of the age and the power of opinion.
Six years ago the declaration against reform which
passed from Wellington's lips as his doom, marking
him rash and dangerous — six years ago the same
speech would have been received with cheers, re-echoed
with praise by all the sycophants, parasites, dupes, and
fools in the United Kingdoms. But a different under-
standing has begun to prevail. The eyes of men are
opened, their wits sharpened against abuses, and the
mere worldlings, even the time-servers and slaves of
authority, saw that the minister was a discredited and
lost m.an when he uttered the impudent outrage against
truth and the common sense of the nation. He is now
departed from the place of power, and with him are for
ever gone the antiquated principles of misgovernment,
whose sudden revival caused almost as instant destruc-
tion.' 1

Fonblanque's blame was too sweeping, and his
forecast too sanguine ; but there was more truth in
both than the Tories liked.

' Fonblanque, England under Seven Administrations, vol. ii. pp. 45>
46.

VOL. II. D

S4

CHAPTER XV.

THE EADICAL REVOLT.
1826—1836.

The year 1769 is often given as the date of ' the birth
of English Radicalism, and the first serious attempt to
reform and control parliament by a pressure from with-
out, making its members habitually subservient to their
constituents ' ; ^ and just half a century later, in 1819,
it is said, ' the reformers first assumed the name of
Radicals.'^ But the movement here referred to was
not one to which either dates or names can be accTi-
rately assigned. There had been democratic dreams and
bursts of action during the centuries before the Revo-
lution of 1688 ; and these were only imitated, varied,
or improved upon during the century and a half that
followed. Wilkes was to some extent a Radical ; and
in Burke, a vastly superior man in every way, the
spirit of Radicalism was purer and more lasting. If
we accept Burke's remark in his ' Thoughts on the
Causes of the Present Discontent ' — ' I see no other
way for the preservation of a decent attention to public
interests in the representatives but the interposition of
the body of the people itself — as the iuitial statement
of the Radical creed, we can trace the thought that
prompted it in the speech and in the conduct of men

' Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. iii. p. 174.
" Martineau, History of the Thirty Years' Peace, vol. i. p. 226.

1769-1820. THE PROGRESS OF RADICALISM 35

Tv^ho lived long before him ; and not till long after his
time, if at any time at aU, was it expressed fully enough
and with sufficient honesty and persistence in either
the speech or the conduct of other men. It is con-
venient and not misleadiag, however, to attribute to
the poHtical disturbances incident to the early years of
George III.'s reign the crude commencement of what
is now known as the Radical party, and to the closing
years of that reign its first assuming of something like
its present shape.

Modem Radicalism began to assert itself in England
in the schemes and protests of those students in the
school of thought that produced the French Revolution
who were denounced by their enemies as Jacobins, but
among whom there were many and wide difi"erences,
Iboth of motive and of method, and some of whom, at
least, can hardly be credited either with motives or
with methods that were either intelligible or consistent.
In youthful disciples of Rousseau, like Coleridge, Words-
worth, and Southey, the Radicalism soon passed into
various grades of Toryism ; and men like Shelley and
Leigh Hunt, starting almost from the same point, but
proceeding in a different direction, though they were
Radicals to the end, were Radicals rather from senti-
ment than from reason. Quite another sort of Radi-
■calism found noisy spokesmen in men like Cobbett,
' Orator ' Hunt, and Sir Francis Burdett, and it was
not all gain to the cause of progress that they were
chiefly instrumental in stirring up so much angry feel-
ing that the suicidal Tory government was inclined to
meet it with attacks on the populace of which the
Peterloo massacre was the most conspicuous, and with
the despotic legislation that culminated in the Six Acts.
A third sort of Radicalism, associated in some respects
Tvith both the others, but distinct from them, was the

D 2

36 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xv.

Kadicalism of which Jeremy Bentham was the pioneer,
and which had for its first text-books his ' Fragment on
Government,' published in 1776, and his ' Introduction
to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,' published
in 1789.

Bentham's foremost disciple and apostle was James-
Mill, who, settling in London in 1800, when he was
twenty-seven, had not found it inexpedient, as a Radical, to
earn money by writing critical essays in and after 1802 for
' The Anti- Jacobin Review,' which was a monthly sequel
to Canning's ' Anti-Jacobin,' and by editing in 1805
and the two or three following years ' The St. James's
Chronicle,' the tri- weekly Tory paper, which was at
that time owned by his friend and publisher, Charles
Baldwin.''^ He soon, however, became the leader, under
the now venerable Bentham, of the new London school
of Radicalism, and, especially after he had obtained
comfortable employment in the India Office in 1819,
was the centre of a brilliant circle of deep thinkers and
brave workers, among whom George Grote, his junior by
twenty-one years, Albany Fonblanque, a year older than
Grote, and his own son, John Stuart Mill, yet twelve
years younger, were to be the most famous and service-
able. Other members of the group were John Black,
the editor of ' The Morning Chronicle,' Walter Coulson,
the editor of ' The Traveller,' John Bo wring, the first
editor of ' The Westminster Review,' which Bentham
started in 1823, and William Molesworth, for whom the
younger Mill edited the ' London Review ' from 1834
till 1836, when it was amalgamated with ' The West-
minster.' Both ' The Chronicle ' and ' The Traveller '
were Whig, or, as they preferred to call themselves,

' James Mill also projected in 1803, and edited till 1806, The Literary
Joti/rnal, a precursor of Tlie Literary Gazette and The Athenxum.~Ba.in,
James Mill; a Biography, pp. 41, 46, 47.

1820-1826. BENTHAM AND HIS PUPILS 37

Liberal, papers, in which Radical views could only be
discreetly propounded ; but Fonblanque wrote much
and boldly in ' The Chronicle ' untU ' The Examiner '
claimed aU his attention, and these two, with ' The
Traveller,' afterwards ' The Globe and Traveller,' were
valuable instructors of public opinion during and after
the reign of George IV.

' The Examiner ' lost ground after Leigh Hunt was
forced to resign the editorship in 1821 ; but he and
Shelley sent contributions from Italy, and new life was
put into it in 1826, when Albany Fonblanque became
its chief political writer, so continuing till the whole
management — ^leading in some way to sole ownership —
was assigned to him in 1830 by Dr. Fellowes, its then
proprietor. We have seen how John and Leigh Hunt
commenced this excellent Sunday paper in 1808 as a
heroic champion of the wisest and truest Radical
thought that the public was at that time able to appre-
hend, and how they nobly carried on their work through,
more than a dozen years, suffering imprisonment and
losing health and money in so doing. It was a welcome
chance, or more than chance, that the same paper should
now be the channel for the utterance of stronger, if not
worthier. Radical teaching by a Radical of firmer if not
loftier mind. Some years afterwards, Leigh Hunt said
gracefully in his old age, ' I had an editorial successor,
Mr. Fonblanque, who had all the wit for which I toUed,
without making any pretensions to it. He was the
genuine successor, not of me, but of the Swifts and
Addisons themselves ; profuse of wit even beyond them,
and superior in political knowledge.' ^ Leigh Hunt
and Fonblanque were equals, in dififerent grooves, and
if the younger man, with keener intellect and stabler
judgment, was a better politician and not inferior in

^ Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, p. 155.

38 THE EADICAL REVOLT ch. xv,

literary skill, tlie elder is bo less worthy of our reve-
rence, and not alone because lie was in many ways a
martyr to the cause he served.

Fonblanque's connection with ' The Examiner' began
opportunely. The parliament that was dissolved at
the end of May 1826, the first in which Radicals
showed themselves as a small party separate from the
Whigs in opposition to the dominant Tories, had made
feeble attempts at dealing with several of the questions
now pressing for solution ; among them, the wide-
spread commercial depression and industrial distress,
ruining great merchants and threatening the working
classes with starvation, for which the only reasonable
remedies proposed were reduction or abolition of the
corn dues and reduction of public expenditure, and, as
a help towards securing those remedies, parliamentary
reform by extension of the franchise and rearrange-
ment of seats. Lord John Russell's motion on April 27,
' that the present state of the representation of the people
in parliament requires the serious consideration of this
house,' had obtained as many as 123 votes to 247 ; but
Joseph Hume, at this time looked upon as the leader of
the Radicals, had only thirty-four votes in support of
his motion on May 4, for an inquiry into the deplorable
state of the nation, which he set forth under forty-five
distinct counts. In the new House of Commons, which
was elected in June, but did not meet till November,
the Radical force was somewhat increased, but the
Whigs were fewer, and the outlook was not encouraging.
It was with reference to the elections that Fonblanque
wrote one of the first, if not quite the first, of his
articles in ' The Examiner.' ' A traveller,' he said, with
the fondness for apt illustration or parable that was
peculiar to him, ' observed a poor Englishman day after
day incessantly patrolling the streets of Geneva in great

1826-1836. 'THE EXAMINEE' UNDER FONBLANQUE 39

distress of mind. On asking him the cause of his
trouble, he answered that he wanted to get home to
England, but that he had not the means of paying for
any conveyance. " My friend," replied the other, " if
you had daily walked ia the direct way towards the
object of your wishes the distance you have daily walked
in. despair about the streets of Geneva, you would have
been at your journey's end by this time." Let us be
wiser than this poor man, and, instead of being filled
with despair by the length of the distance between us
and our object, let us endeavour steadily and per-
severingly to gain the comparatively small space of
ground immediately before us, neither discouraged by
real difficulties nor resting our reliance on vain hopes,
and trusting to nothing but our own energies and con-
stancy, which will carry us, with small means, to the
attainment of great objects.' ^

In that spirit Fonblanque worked on ' The Examiner'
through more than a quarter of a century. He was in
some respects what would now be called an oppor-
tunist, but of the best sort. TiU. near the end — when
he wavered somewhat, as is natural to old men, who,
having seen the attainment of so many of the objects
they aimed at, have found that they have not all been
as beneficial as they expected — he was a thoroughgoing
Radical of Bentham's school ; seeing clearly what was
wrong in social and political institutions, and zealous
to reform them, but too clear-headed and honest to
ally himself completely with any party or section, or
even to surrender his independence of judgment by
slavish following of Bentham's teaching in details ;
preferring to stand by principles, with such varying

' Fonblanque, England under Seven Admiimirations, vol. i. p. 7.
These three voltunes contain a reprint of articles contributed by Fon-
blanque to The Examiner between 1826 and 1836.

40 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xt.

methods of obedience to them as each year's and each
week's conditions and circumstances suggested. The
motto that he found printed on the first page of ' The
Examiner ' when he began to write for it was ' Party
is the madness of many for the gain of a few.' For it,
when ' The Examiner ' became his own property, he sub-
stituted these sentences of Defoe's : ' If I might give a
short hint to an impartial writer, it would be to tell him
his fate. If he resolves to venture upon the dangerous
precipice of telling unbiassed truth, let him proclaim
war with mankind — neither to give nor to take quarter.
If he tells the crimes of great men, they fall upon him
with the iron hand of the law. If he tells them of
virtues, when they have any, then the mob attacks him
with slander. But if he regards truth, let him expect
martyrdom on both sides, and then he may go on
fearless.'

Boldly and persistently discussing the various
phases of the political problem from week to week,
Fonblanque lost no opportunity of calling attention to
social abuses, and to their causes both in remediable
faults among the people themselves, and in the mis-
government by which those faults were aggravated. He
zealously denounced the vices incident to maintenance
of the House of Lords and the Established Church.
He was yet more energetic in exposing the defects in
the machinery for administering justice ; the blunders
and shortcomings of the magistracy being with him a
special object of attack, and a constant theme for his
mockery and expostulation. To him, in no slight
measure, were due the reform of the metropolitan police,
and improved arrangements for the detection of crime
and the treatment of criminals. These were some of
his themes.

In his own trade of journalism, and the pernicious

1826-1836. 'THE EXAMINER' UNDER FONBLANQUE 41

poKcy adopted towards it by the crown and its advisers,
lie took, of course, particular interest. In an article on
' Liberty and Licentiousness of the Press,' prompted in
1827 by a renewal of severity in arbitrarily enforcing
tbe law of libel, we bave a good specimen of bis satire,
' Tbe licenitiousness of tbe press,' be said, ' is a term of
tbe very widest range, including as it does everytbing
that is offensive to anybody. Tbe liberty of tbe press,
on tbe otber band, seems to come under tbe matbematical
definition of a point ; it bas neitber lengtb, bread tb, nor
thickness.' ' There is one body only which the press
is permitted to abuse with entire freedom, and which
the more it abuses by falsehood the more highly its
■conduct will be extolled by the authorities. That body,
we need hardly say, is the people. To misrepresent
every circumstance of public affairs, to praise tbe in-
capable, call piUage necessary expenditure, and distress
prosperity, are falsehoods tending to social injury which
wiU never be numbered among tbe offences of tbe
press. WhUe, indeed, it deals only in these untruths,
it is complimented on the quiet decorum of its conduct.
In the invention of falsehoods for tbe damage of tbe
people there is no offence ; in tbe invention of falsehoods
to tbe discredit of tbe government there is the greatest.
The reason of tbe distinction is obvious ; the hurtful
delusion of tbe people is not a government concern,' ^

When Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool as premier
in April 1827, many of the Whigs welcomed the change,
and expected speedy benefits from bis rule, Fonblanque
recognised the rising statesman's merits, and rejoiced
in tbe separation from him of Wellington, Peel, and the
other Tory malcontents ; but he warned his readers
that Canning was not to be trusted because he was a
good man ; and be uttered the same warnings about

' England under Seven Administrations, vol. i. pp. 92, 96.

42 THE RADICAL REVOLT oh. xt.

Lord Godericli, who was in office from August 1827
till January 1828. ' " Private vices," says Mandeville,
" are frequently public virtues," ' Fonblanque wrote on
the occasion of Goderich's retirement. ' We are almost
tempted to maintain tlie converse, and to hold that,
private virtues are often public mischiefs. George III.'s
constancy to his wife and his shoulder of mutton, his
taste for regularity and simplicity, and the blameless
tenor of his domestic life, enabled him to plunge us
into wasting, unjust, and unnecessary wars. Had he
kept various concubines, and dined off French dishes,
at nine o'clock, the people would have had a lively per-
ception of the depravity of his politics and an intimate
persuasion of their wrongs. As it was, he soared to
heaven between the shoulders of mutton and the arms
of his wife. Two o'clock dinners and conjugal fidelity
procured the remission of his political sins and his
canonisation as a royal saint. How dearly we have
paid for his mutton and his marital virtue ! ' And that
private virtue is no guarantee for public worth, and
may easily be a pretext for grievous wrongdoing, is as-
true, said Fonblanque, of ministers as of kings, and
was shown in the careers of Lord Londonderry, Lord
Sidmouth, Lord Bathurst, Lord Eldon, and others.^

Towards the Duke of Wellington, whose adminis-
tration lasted from January 1828 till November 1830,.
Fonblanque showed no mercy ; and he found fault with
Brougham, Cobbett, and the other shifty Whigs or
Radicals who supported him. ' As premiers have be-
come deities,' he scornfully remarked, 'politics have
necessarily become a theology, and particular politicians-
are to be examined according to new rules and judged
not as statesmen but as man-worshipping religionists.
Creeds, not speeches, should be the fashion now in

' England under Seven Administrations, vol. i. pp. 127-30.

1827-1830. FONBLAWQUE ON THE LATER GEORGES 43

parliament, and an " I believe in Wellington " will most
effectually obviate all inquiiy or obj ection. '^ Fonblanque
missed no opportunity of denouncing Wellington, and
when Wellington's master died in June 1830, the ful-
some panegyrics published in other papers led him to
use plain language in ' The Examiner.' ' In his youth
lie was libertine and profuse,' it was then said con-
cerning George lY., 'and from his mature age he
showed a preference for persons possessed of no qualities
entitling them to consideration or respect. They have
been distinguished by the king's favour, and nothing
else — quacks, serviles, sycophants, and buffoons. The
maxim " Noscitur a sociis " would be a severe test of
the late king's character. When occasions for mag-
nanimity have offered, George IV. has been found
wanting. His persecution of his queen was at once
mean and cruel ; and his conduct towards Napo-
leon Bonaparte, however justifiable in policy, was not
very exalted in sentiment.' ' As for the public events
of his reign, for which honour is demanded for him,
while in ignorance of his part in the accomplishment
of them we know not how to concur in the praise. We
must distinguish between the fly on the chariot and
the causes of its course.'^

The chariot had advanced, however, and no small
share of the progress was due to the zeal and wisdom
of the newspaper reformers, among whom Albany Fon-
blanque now held the foremost place. ' It cannot be
denied,' he said at the close of 1830, 'that for the last
ten years step after step has been won, and not one inch
of ground anywhere lost. We have experienced no
defeats ; we have been stayed, indeed, but never thrust
back.' ' Catholic emancipation had been gained ; the

' England under Seven Ad/ministrations, vol. i. p. 154.
' Ihid., vol. ii. pp. 16-18. ' Ibid. vol. iii. p. 80.

44 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xv.

Test and Corporation Act had been repealed ; great,
though insufficient, changes in fiscal arrangements had
been made ; vast improvements had been effected in
the administration of the law, on which both in ' The
Morning Chronicle ' and in ' The Examiner ' Fon-
blanque had insisted with special force and perseverance,
though without neglect of other matters ; and there had
been much preparation for a breaking down of the
oligarchic institution styled the House of Commons.
All these victories, and many more, had been gained
in defiance of an obstinate king and a series of Tory
ministries, commanding Tory majorities in parliament,
and with no more help from time-serving Whigs than
they cared to render in languid sympathy with the mis-
governed masses, and in less languid anxiety to oust
their hereditary rivals from office and influence.

Though as yet there were no daily papers published
out of London — with the exception of ' The Free-
man's Journal' iu Dublin, and of the obnoxious
' Saunders's Newsletter,' concerning which and its
Orange compeers Daniel O'Connell said, ' They have
" The Warden," which lies onceaweek, " TheMail,"which
lies three times a week, and sly " Saunders," which col-
lects a heap of borrowed lies every morning ' ^ — the
provincial weeklies had made great progress during
George III.'s reign, and nearly all the more important
of these were Radical journals. Chief of all was ' The
Manchester Guardian,' which had been established in
1821 by John Edward Taylor as a direct outcome of
the reforming spirit that Lord Liverpool's administra-
tion had merely encouraged by the Peterloo massacre,
and which, issued on Saturdays, had a Tuesday continua-
tion in ' The Manchester Mercury ' ; and other ^dgorous
papers, like ' The Scotsman ' in Edinburgh, ' The Leeds

' Westminster Beview, January 1830, p. 89.

1820-1826. EADIOAXilSM IN THE NEWSPAPERS 45

Mercury,' and ' The Liverpool Mercury,' which called
themselves Liberal in preference to Radical, were far
in {idvance of orthodox Whig opinion. It is more re-
markable than strange that, with few exceptions, the
only formidable country papers of Tory views were
those, like ' The Birmingham Gazette,' kept up by out-
side help in strongholds of Radicalism, while in Tory-
controlled and aristocratic towns like Brighton, which
had its 'Herald' and its ' Gruardian,' only Radical
journalism was popular.^ The high prices necessitated
by the stamp duty, and the poverty of the working
classes, prevented more than a few of the country papers
from having a large sale ; but it was reckoned in 1830
that in Manchester each copy of the ' Guardian ' and
the ' Mercury ' had at least seventy or eighty readers
upon an average, and their influence and authority as
promoters of reform was very great indeed.

In London, also, several new papers were started in
these years to give utterance to the demands of zealous
reformers, one such being ' The World,' commenced in
December 1826, and edited by Stephen Bourne, which
was the first and only organ of the Nonconformists
until it gave place, in 1833, to ' The Patriot,' under the
management of Josiah Conder.

The most notable of the new London weekly
papers, however, were ' The Atlas ' and ' The Spectator.'
' The Atlas ' made a very ambitious appearance on Sun-

' Westminster Beview, January 1830, pp. 73, 74. ' A few years ago,'
says the same informant (p. 77), ' it was by no means unusual to see
advertisements, "Wanted, an editor for a profincial newspaper who
understands the business of reportiug and can work at case." We have
heard of one instance in which a gentleman was offered Wl. per annum,
to compile a paper, write an original leader, report the proceedings before
the magistrates, compose two columns of the paper, and assist in the
evening in serving in the shop of the iiroprietor, who was a stationer.'
The better country papers had passed out of that stage before 1830 ;
though parallels could be found to it in 1887.

46 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xy.

day, May 21, 1826, as ' a general newspaper and journal
of literature, on the largest sheet ever printed,' and
the high price of a shilling was charged for its sixteen
folio pages, with three columns on each page. It was
started as an organ of the Benthamite school, and, after
a few weeks, the editorship was assigned to Robert
Stephen Rintoul, a very able Scotchman, now in his
fortieth year, who, having managed ' The Dundee
Advertiser' with great success for more than twelve
years after its commencement in 1813, in the course of
which time he made the acquaintance of Joseph Hume
and other prominent Radicals, was invited to under-
take more important work in London. He made a
promising beginning on ' The Atlas,' with Hazlitt,
Fonblanque, and others to assist him ; but differences
of some sort arose between the proprietors and the editor
of ' The Atlas ; ' and, Fonblanque going to ' The Ex-
aminer,' Hume and others, raised a fund to enable
Rintoul to start ' The Spectator ' as their champion ia
the press.

The first number of the new paper appeared on
July 5, 1828, and it was throughout nearly thirty
years under the absolute control of Rintoul, who used
it very skilfully and worthily as an exponent of what
he called ' educated Radicalism.' It was somewhat
crotchety from the first, but unquestionably honest,
ably written, and remarkably well edited as regards
both its selection and epitomising of news and its lite-
rary and political criticisms. ' He had a natural pro-
pensity to examine every question from all points of
view,' we are told of Rintoul by one of his disciples.
' He was anxious to free his mind from all prepos-
sessions that might obscure the truth ; and the fusion
or confusion of parties at the time " The Spectator "
was started predisposed the general public to support

1826-1830. EINTOUL AND 'THE SPECTATOR' 47

a journal conducted in this impartial spirit.' ^ It was a
special school, however, rather than the general public
that accepted Rintoul's guidance, and he was an apt
interpreter of views touching pai'liamentary and other
reform which were held by Benthamites Hke Grote and
influential associates like Hume. ' He was a reformer
both by conviction and sentiment. He was no party
man ; but here was a national, not a party movement.
The sympathies of all his most valued political advisers
were with the reform movement. After mature and
<lispassionate reflection, he came to the conclusion that
it was his duty as a journalist to throw himself into
the scale of reform.' ^ ' The Spectator ' soon became a
power in his hands.

It was probably the competition of ' The Spectator '
which led Dr. Fellowes to make Fonblanque editor and
' trustee,' as well as leader-writer, of ' The Examiner '
at the close of 1830, and from that time it was, as
regards news and general information, a far more ener-
getic exponent of the best and most forcible Radicalism
than it had been before. ' Dr. Fellowes's poHtics,' said
Fonblanque in 1847, ' were those of an enlightened
Radical reformer, more than Whig but short of Chartist.
The steady progress of improvement was what he
desired. He quarrelled not if it were somewhat slow,
so that advance was made. The spirit of toleration
which was his animating spirit preached patience in
politics as in everything else ; and so that evil was
yielding to good, he made allowances for difficulties
and delays.' ^ Fellowes and Fonblanque were of one
mind ; and the latter, forcibly and pungently, with
flashing wit and sustained humour, gave voice to the
thoughts and aspirations of both. ' There is one thing,'

» Spectator, May 1, 1858. " Ibid.

' Life and Labours of Albany FonbUmgue, p. 27.

48 THE EADICAL "REVOLT ch. xt.

Lord Durham wrote to Fonblanque in 1836, 'which
I admire more than your rare wit, your irresistible
humour, and fine scholarship ; and that is the thorough
healthiness of your political views.' ^

The question of parliamentary reform was not new,
but assumed new^ shape, when the death of George IV.
and the political re-arrangements that followed it
brought the Whigs into power. Fonblanque had in-
sisted upon it all along in ' The Examiner ' ; had made
merry over such Whig suggestions as one that appeared
in ' The Morning Chronicle ' in 1828, to the effect that
the best way to improve the quality of the House of
Commons was to raise the property qualification, seeing
that a low franchise only increased the power of the
aristocracy over ' the proletarians, who have a slavish
worship of rank ' ; had pointed out the pernicious work-
ing of aristocratic tyranny in such articles as one on
' The Parliamentary Slave Trade of 1829,' denouncing
the Duke of Newcastle's ejectment of tenants who re-
fused to vote as he bade them ; and had emphasised in
every way, by clear argument and apt illustration, the
views put forward by Bentham and the Benthamites.
In a string of ' Anticipations,' containing suggestions
for a political dictionary that might be compiled in the
twentieth century, he defined ' parliament ' as ' a com-
pound from the French of "parler," to speak, and
"mentir," to lie.' ' Hence,' he said, ' truth is called unpar-
liamentary language. Before the Reformation the great
business of the houses of legislature was to deceive the
people. They openly called themselves " the, estates,"
and were cultivated for the benefit of the airistocracy.'
He was not prepared to admit that the reformation he
desired was assured when, in November 1830, the
Wellington administration was defeated by a majority

' lAfe and Labours of Albany Fonblanqiie, p. 34.

1829-1831. FONBLANQUE ON PAKLTAMENTARY REFORM 49

of 233 to 204, and when, in consequence, Eaii Grey
formed his composite cabinet of Whigs, Canningites
and nondescripts ; or even when ia December a com-
mittee, consisting of Lord John Russell, the cleverest
manipulator of Whig compromises, Lord Durham,
the most Radical of the Whigs, Sir James Graham,
the most Radical of the Canningites, and Lord Dun-
cannon, was appointed to prepare a scheme for such
reconstruction of the parliamentary machine as might
humour the nation without more weakening than was
inevitable, perhaps with actual strengthening, of the
aristocracy. And after Lord John Russell had intro-
duced his famous measure in March 1831, while Fon-
blanque was ready to accept the bill as it stood, if it
could not be improved, he was especially anxious to
improve it, and only joined in the popular cry which
Rintoul had started in ' The Spectator ' — ' The bill, the
whole bill, and nothing but the bUl ! ' — ^in the sense of
tolerating nothing less than the bUl.

After the House of Commons, for rejecting Lord
John Russell's project, had been dissolved in April,
and appeal made to the people to elect a new house by
which the question should be decided, and after the
revived bUl, as passed by that house in September, had
been rejected by the Lords in October — that is, while
preparation was being made for the final struggle and
victory — John Stuart Mill wrote a characteristic letter
to Fonblanque. ' What I want to talk to you about is
the critical state of public afi"airs,' he said. ' I am per-
suaded that everything depends on the attitude of the
people. Their enemies will give up nothing, but in the
fear of worse following. That we may lay down as a
certain position. Well, then, how is that attitude to be
secured? The difficulties are very great. The people,
to be in the best state, should appear to be ready and

VOL. II. E

50 THE EADICAL EEVOLT ch. xv.

impatient to break out into outrage, without actually
breaking out. The press, wMch is bur only instrument,
has at this moment the most delicate and the most
exalted functions to discharge that any power has yet
had to perform in this country. It has at once to raise
the waves and to calm them ; to say, like the Lord,
" Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further." With such
words ringing in their ears, ministers cannot waver if
they would ; and I think you have begun to distrust
them, or at least to express your distrust, too soon.
We should do everything we can to prevent even the
appearance of the cabinet not being with us, and I
believe they are heartily in earnest with the bill ; that is,
as far as Schedules A and B ^ and the 10^. qualification.
With these conditions I am at ease about the rest, and
if there are certain things which will enable certain
lords to say, " Ah ! the biH is now endurable," I know
no objection. Given A and B and the qualification,
and I say it is the bill. The parliament will meet, if
not on the day to which it is prorogued, certainly on
December 1 ; that I believe on good authority. We
must, therefore, hold the language of assurance ; tell
the lords that they will have but a short respite, and
that the king — let us not forget him — and the people
will not be disappointed. I am terrified at the idea of
any collapse in the public mind — that there should be
any idea of despondency. This would give heart, and
along with it strength, to our bitter enemies ; and this

' Disfranchising entirely sixty small boroughs, which returned in all
a hundred and nineteen members, and taking one apiece from forty-
seven other boroughs, then returning ninety-four members. By Sche-
dules C, D, E and P it was proposed to add forty-two members to town
and fifty-five to county constituencies in England, and five in Scotland,
one in Wales, and three in Ireland ; thus reducing the total strength
of the House of Commons from 668 to 596. These figures were con-
siderably altered afterwards.

1831-1835. JOHN STUART MILL AND THE REFORM BILL 51

would be a sure effect of the opinion that we are aban-
doned by the ministers.' ^

In another letter, written early in 1835, Mill showed
himself angry with Fonblanque for not insisting
strongly enough on the ballot, to which Mill himself
was stoutly opposed in later years, but which, with
his concurrence, Grote had proposed in 1834 to the
first House of Commons elected under the Reform Act
and which Grote again proposed to the next parliament
in June 1835. ' Unless you and a few others bestir
yourselves, and give the word to the people to meet and
petition for the baUot during the next few weeks,
Grote's motion will go off flatly, as it did last year, and
if so the consequences will be unspeakably mischievous.
It is enough to drive one mad to see everybody do
everything except the precise thing which is of im-
portance at the time, and so every opportunity lost.' ^

Fonblanque did not deserve Mill's reproach. Few
men knew so well as he how to use the best weapons
and choose the best occasions for attackiug abuses and
promotiug reforms, and he got frequent and valuable
help in both ways from Mill, who in these years wrote
much in ' The Examiner,' and who acknowledged that
his friend was ' zealous in keepiug up the fight for
Radicalism against the Whig ministers.' ^ They after-
wards fell apart, however, and Fonblanque always de-
clined to be ranked with the ' philosophical Radicals,'
deeming that in holding aloof from all sects and cliques
he could best prove himself a loyal disciple of Bentham.
The ' philosophical Radicals ' were at this time some-
what at variance among themselves, as appeared m the
setting up in 1834 of ' The London Review ' in oppo-
sition to ' The Westminster '; and ' The Spectator' was

' Life and Labours of Albany Fonblanque, pp. 29, 30. " Ibid., p. 30.
' Autobiography of John Stuart Mill, p. 197.

52 THE RADICAL REVOLT oh. xv.

the avowed spokesman for their more important section.
There is curious illustration of the instability of some
of the politicians in the fact that in 1834, when Fon-
blanque proposed to several of Ms friends that they
should pay ten years' subscriptions to ' The Examiner ''
in one amount, to enable him to set up new printing
machinery, two volunteers to the fund were Edward
Bulwer, at that time Radical member for Lincoln, and
Benjamin Disraeli, lately defeated as a Radical at
Wycombe, and now Radical candidate for Marylebone.
Another and a less versatile contributor to the fund
was William, afterwards Sir William, Clay, who, in his
letter to Fonblanque, ' trusts the time may yet arrive
when the editor of " The Examiner " shall be as widely
acknowledged as he justly deserves to rank among the
very foremost of those whose labours have tended to
make truth prevalent, have furthered the sacred cause
of equal rights, of government for the good of all, and
promoted consequently in the highest degree the hap-
piness of mankind.' ^

Fonblanque had plenty to do in criticising, and
supporting where he thought it worthy of support, the
conduct of Lord Grey's and Lord Melbourne's admini-
strations until the latter's collapse in 1834, and after-
wards in more boldly attacking the short-lived govern-
ment of Sir Robert Peel. The business that most
concerns us here, however, was the increased agitation
now on foot for removing the legal restrictions on
newspapers. ' The disputes about the liberty of the
press,' Fonblanque wrote in a lively article on ' The
Black Art' in 1831, 'will one day be read with as much
wonder as the disputes about witchcraft. The belief
that helpless old hags could ride the winds, and dis-
pense sickness, sorrow, and calamity, will not seem less
' lAfe and Labours of Albany Fonblanque, pp. 35, 36.

1831. FOMBLANQUE ON 'THE BLACK ART' 53

astonishing than the belief that poor scribblers can
exercise baneful powers over the public mind, and order
at pleasure the rise and fall of institutions. Libel is
the black art of modern times ; the pen, the broom-
stick ; the press, the cauldron ; and the viler the
ingredients flung in, of the more fearful potency the
charm is supposed to be.' But witches, he urged, had
not been got rid of by persecutions, which had only
degraded them and made them more obnoxious and
law-breaking ; and so it must be with the press. ' By
imposing taxes on newspapers, which place them out of
reach of the needy, a contraband trade has been called
into existence, and a cheap illicit spirit, ten times above
proof, has been hawked among the working classes. The
cheap publications, of whose inflammatory tendency so
much complaint is made, are the ofi^spring of the stamp
duties. Reduce the price of the journals which have
some character at stake for truth and knowledge, and
this fry would sink in the competition.' ^

The complaints of well-to-do and self-satisfied
people about the so-called vice of the illicit papers, and
the complaints of the producers and readers of those
papers about the tyranny with which they were treated,
had both been growing for many years ; and this
quarrel now became far more serious and important
than the still very frequent recurrence of the old per-
secutions of the high-priced journals under the Libel
Act.

The newspaper stamp, which siuce 1815 had been
fom-pence, with a discount of twenty per cent., for each
copy sold, together with the tax of three shillings and
sixpence on each advertisement, and the duty on paper,
varying from three half-pence to threepence a pound,
according to quality, was a heavy burden on the pro-

' Englatid under Seven Administrations, vol. ii. pp. 142, 145.

54 THE RADICAL EBVOLT ch. xt.

prietors of the high-priced journals and their readers,
the charge which it was found necessary to make for
' The Times,' ' The Examiner,' and most of the daily
and weekly papers being sevenpence, and for some, like
' The Spectator ' and ' The Atlas,' as much as tenpence
and a shilling.* But the hardship upon those who could
not afford to pay such prices was much greater. The
law was repeatedly eluded by adventurous publishers of
surreptitious prints, some of which, if their circulation
was small, were not seriously hunted down ; and it was
openly evaded in some cases, especially in ' Cobbett's
Register,' which, issued in the form and style of a small
magazine or pamphlet, escaped the stamp diity and was
sold for twopence. The issuing of such publications as
' Cobbett's Register ' without being stamped had, how-
ever, been rendered illegal by the fifth of the Six Acts
passed in 1819. Joseph Hume proposed the abolition
of this act in 1827, but there were only twelve members
of the House of Commons, including himself, to support
the motion ; and he had been equally unsuccessful in
1825, when he moved the reduction of the stamp duty

' The payments made by the proprietors of The Times to the Ex-
chequer in 1828 were as follows : —

£ s. d.

3,046,500 stamps 48,516 13 4

Duty on 92,969 advertisements . . 16,269 11 6
6,703 reams of paper, at 10s. . 3,351 3 0

68,137 7 10

During the same year William Clement paid, on account of The
Morning Chronicle and his three other papers, The Observer, Bell's Life in
London, and The Englishman : —

£ s. d.

2,735,868 stamps 45,597 15 0

Duty on 29,638 advertisements . . 5,185 15 6
,, 6,471 reams of paper, at 10s. . 2,735 10 0

53,519 0 6

Being in the one case nearly l,300i., and in the other more than 1,000L
a week. — Westminster Beview, January 1829, pp. 217, 218.

1827-1830. THE NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTY 55

to twopence, and the advertisement tax to a shilling.
It was an inevitable sequel to these failures that, in
years of such public excitement and demand for news as
those before and after the passing of the Reform Act,
the law and its agents in. the stamp office should be
boldly defied. A systematic war agaiast the authorities
began, and lasted tUl victory was achieved, in which
Henry Hetheriagton was the captain and the chief
hero, though James Watson, William Carpenter, JuUan
Hibbert, John Cleave, William Lovett, and others were
brave and honest fellow- workers and fellow- sufi'erers.

Hetheriagton, born in 1792, was a printer and
bookseller in Soho and afterwards ia the Strand, who
was one of George Birkbeck's earliest and most active
associates ia promoting mechanics' institutes, and
zealous in other work for the improvement of the
people. He was also the chief founder of the Metro-
politan Political Union in March 1830, which was the
germ both of trades -unionism and of the Chartist
movement.^ ' Of all the men ia the battle for the
people's right,' says one of his friends, ' I have known
none more siagle-minded, few so brave, so generous, so
gallant as he. He was the most chivalrous of all our
party. He could neglect his own interests ; but he
never did, and never could, neglect his duty to the
cause he had embraced, to the priaciples he had avowed.
There was no notoriety- hunting in him. He would
toU ia any unnoticeable good work for freedom, ia any
"forlorn hope," even, when he saw that justice was
with them, for men who were not of his party, as
cheerfully and vigorously as most other men will labour
for money or fame or respectability. If strife and
wrath lay ia his path, it was seldom from any fault of

' Life and Struggles of William Lovett, pp. 54, 56 ; W. J. Linton,
James Watson ; a Memoir, p. 34.

56 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xvi

his ; for, thougli hasty, as a man of impulsive nature,
and chafed by some afflictions, he was not intolerant,
nor quarrelsome, nor vindictive. He was utterly
without malice, and he would not have harmed his
worst enemy, though, in truth, he detested tyranny
and tyrants.' ^

In the autumn of 1830, following the example of
WUliam Carpenter in some ' Political Letters ' that he
had published at irregular intervals, Hetherington com-
menced a series of ' Penny Papers for the People,' at
first issued daily and afterwards weekly, each being in
the style of a letter addressed to the people of England,
or to some individual, such as the Duke of Wellington,
King George, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, and
intended ' to provide cheap political information ' of a
sort not friendly to the Tory government, but in no
way seditious, and in far better taste than such Tory
utterances as appeared in ' John BliU ' or ' The Age.'
For issuing these sheets, however, without their being
stamped, and also for printing and selling other revo-
lutionary literature, he was prosecuted and fined.
Thereupon, on July 9, 1831, he started ' The Poor
Man's Guardian,' an eight-paged quarto sheet, stated on
the title to be 'a weekly newspaper for the People,
established contrary to Law, to try the power of Might
against Right.' ' Defiance is our only remedy,' he
said in the opening page of his first number. ' We
cannot be a slave in all. We submit to much, for it is
impossible to be wholly consistent ; but we will try,
step by step, the power of right against might, and we
wiU begin by protecting and upholding this grand bul-
wark of all our rights, this key to all our liberties, the
freedom of the press — the press, too, of the ignorant
and the poor.' Reports of democratic meetings and of

' Linton, James Watson, p. 35.

1831-1834. 'THE POOR MAN'S GUAEDIAN ' 57

acts of oppression by tlie government, and other items
of information ostentatiously bringing ' The Poor Man's
Guardian ' under the definition of a newspaper, were
given, and it contained strongly -worded articles and
letters attacking the authorities ; but, for some time at
any rate, there was nothing that could be reasonably
condemned, and at no time was there anything that a
prudent government would have chosen to interfere
with.

Earl Grrey's government, however, was hardly more
prudent than the Duke of Wellington's, and ' The Poor
Man's Guardian ' was manifestly issued in violation of
the Newspaper Stamp Act and the act of 1819.
Hetherington, accordingly, was promptly prosecuted,
as also were, in the course of three and a half years,
upwards of eight hundred vendors of his publication,
and of others started, not in rivalry with it, but to
assist in the war with the authorities ; and of these
about five hundred were fined, or imprisoned, or both.
Hetherington himself was sent twice for terms of sis
months to Clerkenwell gaol, and once for twelve
months to the King's Bench prison ; Carpenter was
confined for six months in the King's Bench prison ;
Watson for two terms of six months in Clerkenwell ;
Cleave for two months in TothiU-fields ; Abel Heywood
for three months in Manchester ; Mrs. Mann for three
months in Leeds ; and so on. A ' victim fund ' was
started to defiray the expenses of trials and to maintain
the families of those in prison ; and all the supporters
of the movement made it then* business to circulate
the forbidden literature. ' The Guardian ' was printed
surreptitiously, sold by volunteers in workshops and
■club-rooms, sent about the country in chests of tea,
packets of shoes, and such-like parcels, and quickly
brought by the persecutions into far wider circulation

58 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xv.

than it would liave had if its distributors had been left
alone. Hetherington, when not in prison, ' was hunted
from place to place like a wild beast, and obliged to
have recourse to all kinds of manoeuvres in order to see
and correspond with his family ' ; and his comrades
were driven to similar straits.^ At length, after the
hundreds of prosecutions had been carried on in the
lower courts, Hetherington was brought, apparently
for greater effect, before Lord Lyndhurst and a special
jury in the Court of Exchequer in June 1834. He
defended himself with great spirit, and to everyone's
astonishment the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.^
That finding, in which Lord Lyndhurst concurred,
though it was evidently contrary to the letter of the
law, established a precedent which public opinion
approved, and nearly put an end to the persecutions
that had hitherto been carried on. Hetherington im-
mediately started a larger paper, ' The Twopenny Dis-
patch,' in which ' The Poor Man's Guardian ' was merged
at the close of the year : and by that time the market
was flooded with other unstamped twopenny papers,
some of them coarse and scurrilous, and all of them
opposed to Lord Grey's government, which they repre-
sented as in no way better than the Tory adminis-
trations that had preceded it.

One consequence of the popularising of cheap
political literature which Hetherington and his friends
eff^ected was a movement, in itself admirable, and wholly
beneficial in its effects, to provide other and non-
political reading at a low price for the masses. ' Cham-
bers's Edinburgh Journal ' was commenced in February
1832 ; and it was quickly followed by Charles Knight's

' Linton, pp. 2, 23, 33 ; Lovett, pp. 59-61 ; Knight Hunt, vol. ii.
pp. 75-80.

" Poor Man's Guardian, June 21, 1834.

1831-1834. THE UNSTAMPED PKESS 59

' Penny Magazine,' issued under the auspices of The
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of
which Brougham, now Lord Chancellor, was president,
and by several other and less successful serials of a
like sort. These publications were as illegal as were
Hetherington's, and, although no reasonable person could
wish them suppressed, even reasonable persons were
slow in recognising the monstrous injustice of imprison-
ing Hetherington and his friends, and not their rivals.
When, for example, a young man was charged before
a magistrate in June, 1832, with selliug ' The Poor
Man's Guardian,' that official, m committing the
culprit to prison for a month, said that ' there were
many publications iu circulation by the sale of which
in the streets he could make out a livelihood without
running the hazard of punishment ; for instance, there
were " The Penny Magazine," " The National Omnibus,"
and several other useful and cheap works, which con-
tained none of the inflammatory trash by which " The
Poor Man's Guardian " was chiefly distinguished.'
' This is too bad iudeed ! ' exclaimed Albany Fon-
blanque, in ' The Examiner.' 'All lovers of justice must
agree in reprobatiag the selection of a particular publi-
cation for prosecution, while others are allowed to trans-
gress the same law with impunity. The punishment,
in fact, is not for selling an unstamped paper containing
news, but for expressing opinions offensive to govern-
ment. The magistrate's recommendation of " The
Penny Magazine," which is not prosecuted, and which
is started by ministers, and protected by their interest
in its success, is vastly significant. Justice requires
that all publications contravening the law should be
prosecuted, or none. The law, if good, should in every
instance be rigorously enforced ; and, if not in every
instance enforced, it should be repealed, or its operation

60 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xv.

is a scandalous injustice. Journalists who obey the law
are injured by those who defy it ; but we see no reason
— though the solicitor of stamps and attorney-general,
doubtless, do — why "The Poor Man's Guardian"
should be suppressed, while " The Penny Magazine "
is suffered to poach with impunity, and recommended by
magistrates on the bench as a better smuggling specu-
lation ! ' ^ The authorities and the public, however,
were not easily persuaded by men like Fonblanque to
take that common-sense view.

' The Poor Man's Guardian,' though an average
number, sold for a penny, contained very much less
than one-seventh as much disloyalty, profanity, and
vulgarity as could be found in an average number of
' John Bull ' or ' The Age,' sold for sevenpence, was
certamly not as profitable reading as a number of ' The
' Penny Magazine,' or of ' Chambers's Journal,' and
Hetherington and his editors, at first Edward Mayhew,
and afterwards James Bronterre O'Brien, were neither as
learned nor as clever, though they may have been as
honest, and were certainly as self-sacrificing, as Barnes,
of ' The Times,' or Black, of ' The Morning Chronicle ' ;
but to them and to their fellow victims is due no
small share of the credit for having encouraged a taste
for cheap literature, non-political as well as political,
and for having shown how it could be produced.
Another debt we owe to them, and a service which
vastly enhanced that other service, was the speedy
reduction and ultimate abolition of the stamp duty and
of all other taxes on knowledge. Fonblanque and his
friends were but auxiliaries in the great battle that
Hetherington and his friends here won for the com-
munity.

The agitation for repeal of the stamp duty began

' Examiner, June 17, 1832.

1830-1832. THE NEWSPAPER STAMP WAR 61

before ' Tlie Poor Man's Guardian ' was started on the
crusade by which it was made successful. Several
petitions to parliament, presented by Lord Morpeth,
Edward Strutt and others, obtained from Poulett
Thomson, on behalf of the Duke of Wellington's
government, a promise in November 1830, that a pro-
posal for amending the Stamp Act should be brought
forward before Christmas ; but Wellington's overthrow
annulled that promise, and it was not repeated by Earl
Grey's administration, which succeeded. Meetings were
held in London and elsewhere, and petitions were pre-
sented and briefly discussed during 1831, without avail.
The first important handling of the question in the
House of Commons was on June 15, 1832, three days
after the hearing of the police case which has been cited.
Bulwer, in an eloquent speech, then moved a resolution
in favour of abolishing aU taxes impeding the diffusion
of knowledge, pointing out that the stamp and adver-
tisement duties, adding to the necessary charge for
newspapers at least three times as much as the money
required to produce them and to yield a fair profit,
tended to throw the trade into the hands of a few worth-
less monopolists, and, keeping sound political information
out of the reach of the masses, forced them to have
recourse to ' matter made level to their means, through
defiance of the law, and seasoned for their passions and
prejudices.' He quoted ' an intelligent mechanic,' who
had said to him, ' We go to the public-house to read the
sevenpenny papers, but only for the news. It is the
cheap penny paper that the working man has by him to
take up, and read over and over again whenever he has
leisure, that forms his opinions.' If the stamp and
advertisement duties were removed, Bulwer urged, much
better papers than were now sold for sevenpence could
be sold for twopence ; and if a fair charge was made

62 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xv.

for postage, that alone, with, the increased demand,
would soon restore the balance of revenue.^ In Ame-
rica, where newspapers were untaxed, and therefore
cheaper, they were far more abundant than in England.
Pennsylvania, with a population of 1,200,000, had a
weekly supply of 300,000 papers, or one to every four
inhabitants, whereas the whole United Kingdom had a
weekly supply of only 638,000, or but one to every
thirty-six inhabitants. It was our iniquitous stamp
duty that caused this diflFerence. ' The stamp duty,'
Bulwer declared, ' checks legitimate knowledge, which
is morality — the morals of a nation — but it encourages
the diifusidn of contraband ignorance ; the advertise-
ment duty assists our finances only by striking at that
very commerce from which our finances are drawn ; it
cripples at once literature and trade. We have heard
enough in this house of the necessity of legislating for
property and intelligence, but we now feel the necessity of
legislating for poverty and intelligence. At present we are
acquainted with the poorer part of our fellow-countrymen
only by their wrongs and murmurs, their misfortunes and
their crimes. But let us at last open happier and wiser
channels of communication between them and us. We
have made a long and fruitless experiment of the gibbet
and the hulks. In 1825 we transported 283 persons,
but so vast, so rapid was our increase on this darling
system of legislation, that three years afterwards, in
1828, we transported as many as 2,449. During the
last three years our gaols have been sufiiciently filled.
We have seen enough of the effects of human ignorance.
We have shed a sufficiency of human blood. Is it not
time to pause? Is it not time to consider whether, as

' The fourpenny stamp, of course, franked papers by post ; but one
of the hardships of the Stamp Act was that it forced buyers to pay heavily
for postage whether they wanted it or not.

1832-1833. THE NEWSPAPER STAMP WAR 63

Christians and as men, we have a right to correct before
we attempt to instruct?' Daniel O'Connell seconded
Bulwer's motion ; but Lord Althorp, on behalf of the
government, opposed it as ' a proposition which he could
not deny,' but ' from the affirmation of which no prac-
tical good could result,' and it was withdrawn without
courting defeat by a division in an unfriendly house.*

The turmoil incident to the passing of the Keform
Bill afforded some excuse for the apathy of parliament
on the newspaper stamp question in 1832 ; but the
apathy continued after the turmoil was over, and it was
partly due to the shortsightedness and selfishness of
the proprietors of most of the high-priced papers.
Among them ' The Examiner ' stood almost alone in
its insistence on the change which was necessary to the
healthy progress of the press. The prosperous daily
and weekly journals, for the most part, were willing to
endure a charge which their readers could afford to pay
rather than join in the popular demand for such a re-
mission of the heavy tax as would facilitate the pro-
duction of cheap papers and strengthen a rivalry that
was sufficiently irritating to them while it was carried
on only by law-breakers like Hetherington.

It is significant that the first concession made by
the government, and obtained without much difficulty,
was a reduction of the advertisement tax from three
shillings and sixpence to eighteen pence in Great Bri-
tain, and from half a crown to a shilling in Ireland.
This was effected in 1833, and was a great boon both
to those newspapers which derived, or could expect to
derive, much revenue from advertisements, and to those
members of the community who found much adver-
tising convenient or necessary. It was not of great
benefit, or only indirectly beneficial, to the multitude.

' Hansard's Debates, 1832, p. 630 ; Mxaminer, June 17, 1832.

64 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xv.

When it was ascertained, however, that the public exche-
quer, instead of suffering, at once gained by the reduc-
tion— the income from this source, which was 70,965^.
for Great Britain in 1832, being 83,250/. in 1833 1— the
reformers were furnished with a powerful argument
from experience ia aid of their demand for the further
reversal of a penny-wise, pound -foolish, fiscal policy.

On May 22, 1834, Bulwer again raised the question
in parliament. His motion, ' That it is expedient to
repeal the stamp duty on newspapers at the earliest
possible period,' was seconded by John Arthur Roebuck,
whose restless mind was much exercised on the subject
during these years ; but, in a languid and nearly empty
house, it was supported by only fifty-eight members, and
there were ninety votes against it. Fonblanque, who
had objected to the reduction of the advertisement tax
while the stamp duty was not touched, wrote bitterly
about Bulwer's failure. ' The people who are craving
for information,' he said, ' are not of the electoral body,
and it is easier to vote troops to coerce them than to
yield them access to knowledge by which they may
guide their conduct according to the common interests
of society. There are the gaol, the convict-ship, the
gallows, for the errors of ignorance ; and besides these,
the misery and ruin which are unseen punishments.
What need then of enlightenment to prevent what there
is ample provision to chastise ? Or, if the need be con-
fessed, for the sake of humanity, yet how much greater,
how much more important, the need of two or three
hundred thousand pounds for the revenue? Perish the
people, so that the revenue is sustained ; and let them
be as swine or as rabid brutes, so that the revenue
suffers no abatement. The people are made for the
revenue, and not the revenue for the people. While the

' Andrews, vol. ii. p. 217.

1833-1836. THE NEWSPAPER STAMP WAR 65

revenue furnislies bayonets, bullets, and field-pieces,
what signifies the blindness of the people, and their
liability to misguidance? Are there not squadrons to
charge them, and artillery to sweep them down with
grapeshot?' ^

A spell of Tory rule, under Sir Robert Peel's pre-
miership, was needed to convince the Whigs, under
Earl Grey and Lord Melbourne, that they had not, in
passing the Reform Bill, done all the work the Radicals
required of them. During 1835 there was much activity
throughout the country in holding meetings and peti-
tioning parliament in opposition to the stamp duty ;
and John Cleave, Hetherington's brave but rougher
colleague, who had conducted an unstamped ' Weekly
Police Gazette,' which continued more coarsely the
work of ' The Poor Man's Guardian,' became a hero
and martyr when, on February 5, 1836, he was fined
5001. for his law-breaking. Six days later, on Feb-
ruary 11, Lord Melbourne, being in office again, was
waited upon by a deputation of thirty members of par-
liament and many others, for whom Birkbeck was chief
spokesman, other speakers being Hume, O'Connell, and
Francis Place, the famous ' Radical tailor of Charing
Cross ' ; and their arguments and warnings helped to
fHghten the government into action.^ On March 15
Spring Rice, the chancellor of the exchequer, an-
nounced in the House of Commons that the long-
deferred question was being considered ; and on June 20
he moved 'that it is expedient that the duty now
payable be reduced, and that the duty paid and payable
upon every sheet whereon a newspaper is printed shall
in future be one penny.'

Much opposition was ofi"ered to that proposal. Sir

' England wnder Seven Achninistrations, vol. iii. pp. 50, 51.
■' Knight Hunt, vol. ii. pp. 80-86.
VOL. II, F

66 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xv.

Charles Knightley urged that the soap duty should be
reduced instead of the newspaper duty. How, he in-
quh-ed, could he ask a man for his vote who was able
to say to him, ' Instead of giving me the opportunity of
getting clean hands for myself, and clean garments for
my wife and children on a Sunday, you give me at a
low price a parcel of dirty newspapers ' ? ' Every in-
dividual to whom parliament had given the franchise,'
Charles Barclay maintained, ' already possessed ample
power of reading the papers, whether at the public-
houses, beershops, or coffee or public reading rooms.'
Henry Goulburn, John Walter, of ' The Times,' and
others, protested against a measure that could not fail
to lower the character of the press, and must seriously
damage the vested interests of newspapers already
established. The ministerial project was acceded to,
however, by a majority of 241 to 208, and the measure
brought in was read a third time in the Commons, by a
majority of 55 to 7, on July 25. The bill was faulty
in its original shape, and it was much injured by the
House of Lords ; but it became law on September 15,
1836.^ Earlier in the session, as part of the budget,
the paper duty had been fixed at a uniform rate of three-
halfpence a pound.

The victory thus tardily won satisfied nobody. The
proprietors of the high-priced newspapers made light
of the opportunity afforded them of reducing their
charges by twopence a copy, and deprecated the com-
petition that would be forced upon them by the pro-
prietors and projectors of cheap papers. These latter
reasonably complained that, though the penny secured
free postage, very few of the copies issued by them
would go through the post, and that they would still
be compelled to charge twopence or threepence apiece

' Andrews, vol. ii. pp. 226-233.

1836. THE LO WEEING OF THE STAMP DUTY 67

for their papers, wiiich they could only expect to sell
by hundreds at that price, instead of being able to
sell them by thousands for a penny or three-hal^ence.
Economists alleged that the revenue would suffer ; and
politicians urged, with more truth, that the old grie-
vance, whether reasonable or not, had not been removed,
"whUe a new grievance had been created.

Yet the benefits that ensued were great, and even the
exchequer soon profited immensely by the change. In
the half-year ending with April 5, 1837, the first in
which the stamp duty was only a penny, the income
from 21,362,148 stamps sold was 88,592Z., as against
196,909Z. derived fi-om 14,874,652 stamps sold at four-
pence, with an allowance of twenty per cent., in the
corresponding half-year, showing, on comparison of the
two half-years, a loss of 108,317^. to the revenue, and
an increase of 6,487,496 in the circulation ; and the
progressive increase of circulation quickly turned the
scale as regards revenue. Whereas in 1816, the first
year of the fourpenny duty, the circulation had been
only 22,050,354, and it was only 39,423,200 in 1836,
the last year of the fom-penny duty, it reached
83,074,638 in 1846, after ten years of the penny duty.
During the twenty years of the fourpenny duty the
average increase each year, in spite of heavy fiscal bur-
thens and tyrannical enforcement of tyi-annical laws,
had been 868,643, which may be attributed to the
growth of population and spread of intelligence. During
the next ten years the average yearly increase was
4,365,144, or five times the previous average, and those
were years in which the fiscal burthens were still heavy,
and the laws not clear of tyranny. The progress must
be attributed mainly to the comparative relief from
oppression and to the general improvement of society
which accompanied it ; and the advance continued. In

!• 2

68 THE RADICAL REVOLT ch. xv.

1854, the last year but one of the compulsory penny
stamp, the circulation was 122,178,507, more than a
threefold growth in the course of eighteen years. Even
in 1854, however, the complete enfranchisement of the
press was only commencing ; and, significant as is the
evidence of figures, they reveal but a small part of the
record.

69

CHAPTER XVI.

BARNES AND HIS RIVALS.

1830-1841.

When William lY. became king, Thomas Barnes was
forty-five years old, and liad been editor of ' The
Times ' for some thirteen years. Great as was the suc-
cess already achieved by him ia that post, and by John
Walter as genei'al controller of the business, ' The Times '
was now to be a far more successful and influential
paper. All through the reign of George IV., as well
as during the regency, it had been a vigorous upholder
of Tory politics, in the main supporting the adminis-
tration of the day — whether Liverpool's, Canning's,
Goderich's, or Wellington's ; but it had always claimed
or pretended to be independent, and especially in the
later years, after Liverpool's retirement left the party
in confusion, weakened by internal divisions, and only
able to face the advancing tide of Radicalism by yield-
ing sullenly and partially to its more imperious de-
mands. So matters continued, or went on varying.
The variations were more considerable, however, fi*om
the time when Earl Grey took office in the autumn of
1830, and while, with the brief interruption of Su* Robert
Peel's first premiership, Lord MelbomTie maintained the
Whig supremacy tUl the autumn of 1841,

To an early stage in this period must be assigned
one of Charles GrevUle's anecdotes. ' Le Marchant
called late one night many years ago,' he wrote in 1847,

70 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS oh. xti.

'on Barnes at his house, and while there another visitor
arrived, whom he did not see, but who was shown into
another room, Barnes went to him, and after a quarter
of an hour returned, when Le Marchant said, " Shall I
teU you who your visitor is ? " Barnes said, yes, if
he knew. "Well, then, I know his step and his voice;
it is Lord Durham." Barnes owned it was, when Le
Marchant said, " What does he come for ? " Barnes
said he came on behalf of King Leopold, who had been
much annoyed by some article in " The Times," to
entreat they would put one in of a contrary and heal-
ing description. As Le Marchant said, here was the
proudest man in England come to solicit the editor of
a newspaper for a crowned head ! ' ^

Before Sir Denis Le Marchant became private secre-
tary to Brougham as lord chancellor, and before Durham
was made lord privy seal under his father-in-law. Earl
Grey, and therefore before either of them could wait as
ministerial intermediaries on the editor of ' The Times,'
there had been frequent communications, of which we
have seen something, between Barnes and the Tory
leaders ; and those leaders were in sore straits when
Barnes broke with them, and made political capital for
his paper out of the popular agitation for reform which
was now on foot, and which caused Grey's displacement
of Wellington as premier in November 1830. Another
passage in Greville's instructive journals illustrates the
alarm and perplexity, much increased by their lack of
any capable or satisfactory organ in the press, in which
the Tories were now placed. ' Yesterday,' Greville,
who was at that time a zealous young Canningite, wrote
on December 19, 1830, ' Mr. Stapleton, Canning's late
private secretary, called on me to discuss the subject,
and the propriety and possibility of setting up some

' Greville Memoirs (Second Part), vol. iii. p. 75.

1830-1831. AMBASSADORS TO 'THE TIMES' 71

dyke to arrest the torrent of innovation and revolution
that is bursting in on every side. " John Bull " alone
fights the battle ; but " John Bull " defends so many
indefensible things, that its advocacy is not worth
much. An " Anti-Radical," upon the plan of the " Anti-
Jacobin," might be of some use, provided it was well
sustained. I wrote a letter yesterday to Barnes, remon-
strating on the general tone of " The Times," and invit-
ing him to adopt some Conservative principles in the
midst of his zeal for reform.' ^

No ' Anti- Radical ' was started, and Canningite
remonstrances with Barnes were futile. The Tories had
to content themselves with such service as could be done
to them by ' The Morning Herald ' and ' The Morning
Post,' by ' The Standard ' as their worthiest organ,
though only an evening paper, and by such disreput-
able weekly supporters as ' John Bull ' and ' The Age.' "
All through 1831 they were trying to get ' The Times '
to give them at any rate some assistance. On Novem-
ber 21 Greville reported that his friend Henry De Ros
had seen Barnes and ' opened negotiations ' with him.
' Henry's object was to persuade him if possible, that
the interest of the paper will be in the long run better

' Greville Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 97.

' Nearly at the commencement of his premiership, Earl Grey had to "
complain to Sir Herbert Taylor, William IV. 's private secretary, of the
•way in which he suspected that people about the court, if not the king
himself, were endeavouring to vmdermine his work by divulging cabinet
secrets to Tory journalists and others. The immediate occasion was an
anonymous letter he had received. ' It would not have obtained from
me more attention than other anonymous letters,' he wrote, ' had I not
heard of a conversation, exactly corresponding with it, which had been
held at the Speaker's, in a party at which Mr. Croker and Mr. Theodore
Hook were present. It had also been reported to me that several times
there had appeared in John Bull — ^which I never see — details respecting
the arrangements that were going on, which could not have been obtained
except from persons who had accurate information respecting them.
With this paper Mr. Hook is said to be connected. Mr. Croker is also
said to write in it.' — Correspandence of Marl Grey with William IV,, vol. i.

72 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xvi.

consulted by leaning towards the side of order and
quiet than by continuing to exasperate and inflame.
He seemed to a certain degree moved by this argument,
though he is evidently a desperate Radical.' ^

Barnes was one of those discreet editors who set
policy before principle, and subordinate their own
opinions to the interests they are paid to serve. He did
his work well, and with comparatively few blunders, and
it may be taken for granted that, like most of the men
placed in similar positions, and fitting into them in
similar ways, he gradually came to hold views and to
follow lines that were at first impossible or uncon-
genial to him. But it is likely enough that his personal
sympathies were still with the reformers, and that he
had kindly recollections of the time when he was really
'a desperate Radical' — the schoolfellow and the fellow-
worker on ' The Examiner ' of Leigh Hunt, and the
friend of Shelley, Hazhtt, and others. He never quar-
relled with his old comrades, though circumstances
forced him. far away from their company.

During more than the first year of Earl Grey's
administration, all through the discussion on the first
and second of its Reform Bills, and till the time when
the third bill had nearly passed the committee stage in
the House of Commons, 'The Times' was stoutly minis-
terialist. As early as January 1831 it was understood
by the knowing ones that it was receiving private
information from Lord Grey ; ^ and such information
continued to be supplied as often as there was occa-
sion for it, and to be used in emphasising articles in
support of the government, till the spring of 1832.
When, on February 29, much commotion was caused
by the premature appearance iii ' The Times ' of ex-
tracts from a letter of Lord Harrowby's to Lord Grey,

' Greville Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 214. ^ Croker Papers, vol. ii. p. 118.

1831-1832. FROM RADICAL TO TORY 73

■Greville wrote : ' I have little doubt that this, as well
-as former extracts, came from the shop of Durham and
Co., and so Melbourne told me he thought likewise.'
'Day after day "The Times" puts forth paragraphs
evidently manufactured in the Durham shop,' Greville
added on March 6. ' Yesterday there was one which
-exhibited their mortification and rage so clearly as to be
quite amusing — upraising the duke and the Tories, and
abusing Harrowby and Wharncliflfe and the Moderates.'
That last sentence, however, shows that a change, not
apprehended by Greville, had already begun. It was
not ' Durham and Co.,' but the Duke of Wellington and
the Tories that ' The Times ' wanted to please by its
■attack on Lord Harrowby and the Moderates.^ ' " The
Times," yesterday aud the day before,' Greville wrote
on the 9th, ' attacked liOrd Grey with a virulence and
indecency about the peers that is too much even for
those who take the same line, and he now sees where
his subserviency to the press has conducted him.' ^

The precise reasons for that sudden turning round
have not been disclosed; but they can easily be
guessed. John Walter, the principal proprietor of ' The
Times,' was now about to enter parliament, and,
though he never called himself a Tory, all his leanings
were towards Toryism, and the threat to swamp the
House of Lords with Whig peers in order to pass the
Reform Bill, which was now being uttered and discussed
in the ianer political and courtly circles, frightened
many besides Lord WhamclifFe. Henceforth ' The Times, '
though it only occasionally dencmiced the ministerial
policy, gave no more support to Earl Grey's adminis-
tration than it had given to the Duke of Wellington's.
■Of its attitude when a measure of such importance as
Lord Grey's Irish Coercion Bill was before parliament,

* Greville Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 264, 266. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 267.

74 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xvi..

and of the control whicli it exercised over divided public
opinion, and all the more siiccessfally, perhaps, because
of its claim to independence, striking illustration is
furnished by Greville. ' The government,' he wrote on
February 27, 1833, ' assumes a high tone, but is not at
all certain of its ability to pass the Coercion Bills un-
altered, and yesterday there appeared an article in " The
Times " in a style of lofty reproof and severe admoni-
tion which was no doubt as apj>alling as it was meant
to be. This article made what is called a great sensa-
tion. Always struggling, as this paper does, to take
the lead of public opinion, and watching all its turns
and shifts with perpetual anxiety, it is at once regarded
as undoubted evidence of its direction, and dreaded for
the influence which its powerful writing and extensive
sale have placed in its hands. It is no small homage to
the power of the press to see that an article like this
makes as much noise as the declaration of a powerful
minister or a leader of opposition could do in either
house of parliament.' ^

When Earl Grey, thwarted by his own colleagues,
and especially by his son-in-law. Lord Durham, in his
Irish coercion policy, resigned the premiership in July,
1834, to be succeeded for a term of only four months by
Lord Melbourne, ' The Times,' foreseeing and hastenmg
the end, was bolder and more persistent in its attacks,
and these for some time were especially directed against
Lord Brougham, who, though he had been for a long
time a regular contributor to its columns, was in no-
way spared on that account. The special occasion was
the very foolish and vain-glorious conduct of Brougham
during a tour of holiday-making and speech-making in
Scotland. ' For some weeks past,' GrevUle reported on
September 18, ' a fierce war has been waged by " The

^ Greville Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 362.

1834. LOED BROUGHAM AND ' THE TIMES ' 75

Times " against tlie chancellor. It was declared in
some menaciag articles wMcli soon swelled into a tone
of rebuke, and have since sharpened into attacks of a
constancy, violence, and vigour quite unexampled. All
the power of writing which the paper can command —
argument, abuse, and ridicule — have been heaped day
after day upon him, and when it took a little breathing
time it filled up the interval by quotations from other
papers, which have been abundantly supplied both by
the London and the country press. I do not yet know
what are the secret causes which have stirred the wrath
of " The Times." " The Examiner " has once a week
thrown into the general contribution of rancour an
article perhaps wittier and more pungent than any which
have appeared in " The Times " ; but between them they
have j&agellated him till he is raw, and it is very clear
that he feels it quite as acutely as they can desire.' ^

One of the ' secret causes ' of ' the wrath of " The
Times " ' which Greville had not fathomed was after-
wards explained, not very adequately, in h curious way.
A clerk in the lord chancellor's court, we are told, one
morning saw Brougham reading a letter, which he pre-
sently tore up and threw on the floor. The treacherous
clerk picked up the fragments and pieced them toge-
ther, showing the letter to be as follows : —

Deab Brougham, — What I want to see you about is ' The
Times ' : whether we are to make war on it or come to terms.

Yours ever,

Alxhorp.

This document, it is added, found its way tp Printing
House Square, and gave such offence to Barnes or
Walter that ' The Times ' proceeded to ' make war '
without recognising an alternative. In its condemna-
tion of Brougham it predicted that ' Lord Melbourne
would soon find him out, as the honest men of the

' Greville Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 133.

76 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xvi.

community were an overmatch for the knaves ' ; and the
■only excuse it allowed for him was that he was mad,
' under a morbid excitement seldom evinced by those
of his majesty's subjects who are suffered to remain
masters of their own actions.'

' The Examiner ' had better excuse than ' The
Times ' for attacking Lord Brougham, whose arro-
gance and vanity were always obnoxious to Fon-
blanque, and who was now making unusual exhibition
of these qualities. Brougham had met Earl Grrey at a
great banquet in Edinburgh, and had then exclaimed
in insulting allusion to his former chief, ' These
hands are pure ! In taking office, in holding office, in
retaining office, I have sacrificed no feeling of a public
n.ature, I have deserted no friend, I have abandoned no
principle, I have forfeited no pledge, I have done no
job, I have promoted no unworthy man, to the best of
my knowledge ; I have not abused the ear of my royal
master, and I have not deserted the cause of the
people.' This utterance prompted Fonblanque to
insert in ' The Examiner ' a rhymed ' Letter from a
Gentleman who travels for a large Establishment to one
of his Employers, Mr. William King ' : —

Dear sir, the account here forwarded

Of favours since the 4th
Presents a very handsome stroke

Of business in the North.
Our firm's new style don't take at all,

So thought the prudent thing
Would be to cultivate the old

Established name of King.

If any friend attention shows,

And asks me out to dine
When company my health propose,

In toddy or in wine,
My heart's eternal gratitude

About their ears I ding
With, ' Be assured I'll mention this

Next post to Mr. King ! '

1834. LORD BROUGHAM AND ' THE TIMES ' 77

I met with Grey the other day,

Who since he left the firm,
Has travelled on liis own account,

And done, I fear, some harm ;
So thought it right, where'er he went.

To whisper round the ring,
' Perhaps you don't know how he lost

The confidence of King.'

It is probable, bowever, tbat Brougham made no
objection to the ' flagellation ' of ' The Times ' or ' Tbe
Examiner.' Publicity of any sort was delightful to him,
and, in default of other people's abuse, he publicly quar-
relled with himself. It was somewhat before this time
that, as we are told, Barnes called one day on the lord
chancellor, and, while waiting in a private room till his
contributor had left the bench, took up a copy of ' The
Morning Chronicle,' in which he read an article de-
mohshing one that had appeared in ' The Times ' of
the previous day. Barnes recognised the style. ' Well,'
he said, when Brougham came to him, ' it is almost too
bad of you to demohsh yourself in this way ' ; and the
chancellor, finding evasion useless, had to admit that
he had earned a double fee with truly lawyer-like
impartiality.^

Less than two months after the furious attacks upon
him had appeared in ' The Times,' Brougham had the
credit of rendering it some service, by an act that
spoUt his chance of ever being lord chancellor again.
When, on November 14, Lord Melbourne tendered his
resignation to the king, he did so without consulting his
colleagues, and did not even take the trouble to inform
them on the same evening, except that, as GrevUle
reports, he mentioned the important fact to Brougham,
who happened to call upon him ; ' but made him pro-
mise not to say a word of it to anybody,' Brougham

' Enight Hunt, vol. ii. p. 177.

78 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xn.

' promised, and the moment he quitted the house went
to " The Times " office, and told them what had
occurred.' ^

'The Times' of November 15 contained this start-
ling paragraph : ' We have no authority for the important
statement which follows, but we have every reason to
believe that it is perfectly true. We give it without any
comment or explanation, in the very words of the com-
munication which reached us at a late hour last night.
" The king has taken the oppoi'tunity of Lord Spencer's
death to turn out the ministry, and there is every reason
to believe that the Duke of WelUngton has been sent
for. The queen has done it all." ' Apart from the
impropriety of announcing Lord Melbourne's resigna-
tion in ' The Times ' before he had communicated it to
his colleagues,^ the offence of the paragraph was in its
last sentence. Queen Adelaide, with her imperious
bearing, her extravagant habits, and her scheming ways,
had always been a more difficult person for ministers
to deal with than her husband ; but to throw public
blame on her was an intolerable outrage. While the
Duke of WeUington, having hurried up from Brighton in
obedience to the royal summons, was urging the king to
retain the Melbourne administration. Sir Herbert Taylor
burst into the room, and showed ' The Times ' article
to the king. ' There, duke,' said his majesty, ' you see
how 1 am insulted and betrayed. Nobody in London
but Melbourne knew last night what had taken place

^ Chenille Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 144. The Examiner and other papers
confirm Greyille's account. Croker, however (Papers, vol. ii. p. 246),
said it was ' Bear ' Allen who played the traitor.

"^ ' When Lord Holland saw the papers next morning,' Oroker re-
ported (Papers, vol. ii. p. 246), ' he said " Well, here's another hoax ! "
Lord Lansdowne equally disbelieved it, and I believe one or two others
of the cabinet also learnt the dissolution from the newspapers. How
like Melbourne all this is ! '

1834. 'THE TIMES' AND THE TORIES 79

liere, nor of my sending for you. Will your grace
compel me to take back people who liave treated me in
this way? ' ^ Melbourne bad to be recalled only five
months later ; btit Brougham was not reinstated in the
lord chancellorship.

WhUe Wellington was preparing to take of&ce, with
Peel as premier, his friends were busily arranging for
' The Times ' to be the thoroughgoing champion of their
policy. ' I asked the duke if he had seen " The Times "
this morning? ' Greville wrote on November 17. ' He
said no, and I told him there appeared in it a con-
siderable disposition to support the new government,
and I thought it would be very desirable to obtain that
support, if it could be done. He said that he was aware
be had formerly too much neglected the press, but he
did not think " The Times " could be influenced. I urged
tim to avail himself of any opportunity to try, and he
seemed very well disposed to do so.' On the same day
GrevUle gave similar advice to Lord Lyndhurst. ' He
said he desired nothing so much, but in his situation
he did not like personally to interfere, nor to place
himself in their power. I told him I had some acquaint-
ance with Barnes, the editor of the paper, and would
find out what he was disposed to do, and would let him
know, which he entreated me I would.' ^

The negotiations that ensued lasted more than a
fortnight, and tried the diplomatic skill of several busy
politicians. ' In consequence of what passed between
Lyndhurst and me concerning " The Times," ' Greville
reported on November 19, ' I made Henry De Eos send
for Barnes (who had already at his suggestion adopted
a conciliatory and amiable tone towards the embryo
government), who came and put on paper the terms on

' MoCuUagh Torrens, Memoirs of Lord Melbourne, vol. ii. p. 44.
^ GrevUle Memoirs, vol. iii. pp. 149, 151.

80 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xti.

which, he would support the duke. These were, no-
mutilation of the Eeform Bill, and the adoption of those
measures of reform which had been already sanctioned
by votes of the House of Commons last session with
regard to church and corporations, and no change in our
foreign policy. I have sent his note to Lyndhurst, and
begged him to call here and talk the matter over.'
' Lyndhurst has just been here,' it was added later in
the same day. ' He had seen the duke, who had
already opened a negotiation with Barnes through Scar-
lett. I offered to get any statement inserted of the
causes of the late break-up, and he will again see the
duke and consider the propriety of inserting one. He
said, " Why, Barnes is the most powerful man in the
country." " The Standard " has sent to offer its sup-
port. The duke said he should be very happy ; but
they must understand that the government was not yet
formed.' ' The Standard ' might be played with, but
not ' The Times.' ' This morning,' G-reville wrote on
November 23, ' I received a note from Henry De Eos,
enclosing one from Barnes, who was evidently much
nettled at not having received any specific answer to
his note stating the terms on which he would support
the duke. Henry was disconcerted also, and instructed
me to have an explanation with Lyndhurst. I ac-
cordingly went to the Court of Exchequer, where he
was sitting, and waited till he cafiie out, when I gave
him these notes to read. He took me away with him,
and stopped at the Home Ofl&ce to see the duke and
talk with him on the subject ; for he was evidently a
little alarmed, so great and dangerous a potentate is
the wielder of the thunders of the press.' Wellington
promised to consult Peel, and on the following day
communications were made to Barnes, with which he
declared himself ' quite satisfied.' ' Barnes is to dine

1834. 'THE TIMES' AND THE TOKIES 81

with. Lyndhurst/ it was noted on November 26, 'and a
gastronomic ratification wOl wind up the treaty between
these high contracting parties.' The new lord chan-
cellor's zeal, however, seems to have outrun his discre-
tion. ' The dinner that Lyndhurst gave to Barnes,'
Greville recorded on December 5, ' has made a great
uproar, as I thought it would. I never could under-
stand the chancellor's making such a display of this
connection ; but, whatever he may be, he is a lawyer,
and how great soever in his wig, I suspect that he is
deficient in knowledge of the world, and those nice cal-
culations of public taste and opinion which are only
acquired by intuitive sagacity exercised in the daily
communion of social life.' Yet all ended happily, for
the time being. Our last note is dated December 6 :
' Lyndhurst is doing all he can to draw closer the con-
nection between "The Times" and the government, and
communicates constantly with Barnes.' ^

The Tory ministry that the Duke of Wellington
patched up, with Sir Robert Peel as its head and Barnes
as its mouthpiece, lasted barely more than three months,
and, though the readers of ' The Times ' were not in-
formed of the curious arrangements that had been made
for their instruction or beguiling, many of them shook
their heads and chose other political guides even before
the crisis came. ' " The Times " has made a sad
blunder,' Rintoul wrote in ' The Spectator,' ' in going
over to the Tories. It has been playing for once a
losing game, and we cannot say that it has played with
its usual ability and spirit.' ' Never was there a more
complete failure,' he added, referring to the administra-
tion of 1828-30, ' than the attempt of " The Times " to
induce the public to believe that the duke's ministry
would be a reform ministry,' and it had been losing

> Greville Memoirs, vol. iii. pp. 149, 151, 155, 158, 159, 169, 171.
VOL. II. Q

82 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xti.

ground ever since, erring in its languid support of the
Grey administration, and yet more in its reckless attack
on tlie Melbourne administration and its reckless de-
fence of the Peel administration, ' It became decidedly
more subservient as the cabinet grew more and more
Orange ; and it is now the rankest Conservative of all
the journals. It adopts the old Tory theory of " saving
the people from themselves," and is full of abuse and
detraction of the men who have not changed in any
particular from what they were when cheered on and
lauded by " The Times." Within a few weeks, and
while the whole country was staring at a change more
extraordinary than any which the wooden sword of
Harlequin has achieved this Christmas, " The Times,"
that boasts of leading three-fourths of the people of
England in their opinions, has taken up and supported
two opposite systems of politics. The effect of this
remarkable tergiversation is evident in the leading
articles of the paper. They are impudent without being
energetic, and abusive but not vigorous.' ^

There was some jealousy in those strictures, but
they were true in the main. Although the articles in
' The Times ' of George IV.'s and William IV.'s days
are tedious reading now, they were evidently well suited
to the taste of the majority of those to whom they
were addressed, and for whom Rintoul's articles were
too sedate and Fonblanque's too brilliant. The more
important of them were written by Edward Sterling,
who was still, as he had been for twenty years, the chief
' thunderer ' of ' The Times.' ' An amazingly impetu-
ous, hasty, explosive man, this Captain Whirlwiad!
—a remarkable man, and playing, especially in those
years 1830-40, a remarkable part in the world,' said
Thomas Carlyle, who knew him well, but attributed

• Spectator, January 3, 1835.

1830-1840. EDWAED STERLING AS ' THUNDEEER ' 83

to him too much authority iu directing the pohcy that
he enforced. That policy was directed by Barnes, at
the bidding of Walter, and only propounded in
boisterous words by Sterling. Yet Carlyle's descrip-
tion or apology is interesting. ' The sudden changes
of doctrine in " The Times," which failed not to excite
loud censure and indignant amazement in those days,'
he says, ' were first intelhgible to you when you came
to interpret them as his changes. These sudden whirls
from east to west on his part, and total changes of party
and articulate opinion at a day's warning, lay in the
nature of the man, and could not be helped ; products
of his fiery impatience, of the combined impetuosity
and limitation of an intellect which did nevertheless
gravitate towards what was loyal, and true, and right
on all manner of subjects. Thus, if he stormed along,
ten thousand strong, in the time of the Reform Bill,
indignantly denouncing Toryism and its obsolete, in-
sane pretensions, and then if, after some experience of
"Whig management, he discerned that Wellington and
Peel, by whatever name entitled, were the men to be
depended on by England, there lay in aU this, visible
enough, a deeper consistency, far more important than
the superficial one so much clamoured after by the
vulgar.' ^ Sterling doubtless satisfied himself that the
divers and diverse opinions he gave utterance to at
various times were all sound at the moment of writing,
and he may have not only thought them really his own,
hut also spiced them with his strong individuality ;
but we must accept as truthful the statement which he
made, when put upon his honour, ia reply to a charge
"brought against him as part editor of ' The Times,' by
Roebuck. ' I never have been technically or morally
connected in any manner with the editorship of "The
» Carlyle, lAfe of John, Sterling, pp. 302-304.

84 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS oh. xvi.

Times," ' he wrote on June 27, 1835, ' not possessing-
over the course or choice of its politics any power or
influence whatever, nor, by consequence, being respon-
sible for its acts.' ^

If Sterling as leader-writer, or Barnes as editor, or
Walter as manager-in-chief, acted indiscreetly, and
really injured ' The Times ' in trying to serve it, by the
violent support given to the luckless Tory administra-
tion of 1835, arid if the business in which they were
severally concerned was blameworthy, there is all the
more reason for quoting a remarkable letter which Sir
Robert Peel, on April 18, the very day on which his
first premiership ended, addressed to the editor of ' The
Times,' and which Barnes handed on to Sterling for
his consolation. Its purport was honourable both to
Peel and to his champions on ' The Times.' ' If I dO'
not offer the expressions of personal gratitude,' he wrote,
in acknowledging the ' powerful support ' he had re-
ceived, 'it is because I feel that such expressions would
do injustice to the character of a support which was
given exclusively on the highest and most independent
grounds of public principle. I can say this with perfect
truth, as I am addressing one whose person even is un-
known to me, and who, during my tenure of power,
studiously avoided every species of intercourse which
could throw a suspicion upon the motives by which he
was actuated. I should, however, be doing injustice to

' Note to The Dorchester Labourers, p. 16, in Roebuck's series of
Pamphlets for the People. ' Some time since,' Roebuck had written, ' I
was in the habit of meeting Mr. Sterling in society, and was not a little
amused by the charlatan game he played to hide his editorship of The
Times. If anyone had assumed the fact, he would have taken it as an
affront. There was a painful resemblance between this man's position
and that of a bravo spy in Venice. They both had a secret and irresistible
power — the one slew you, the other merely ruined your reputation.' — The
Stamped Press of London, and its Morality, p. 5, in Roebuck's Pamphlets:
for the People.

1835. SIR ROBERT PEEL ON 'THE TIMES' 85

my own feelings if I were to retire from office without
■one word of acknowledgment, without at least assuring
you of the admiration with which I witnessed duriug
the arduous contest in which I was engaged, the daily
exhibition of that extraordinary ability to which I was
indebted for a support the more valuable because it was
an impartial and discriminating support.' ^

Peel, we may safely assume, was not in the mood to
address similar language to the writers of ' The Times '
seven or eight years later, when he was in office again,
and at this time an object not of praise but of abuse.
He was never, however, attacked with such coarseness
as was applied in 1835 and 1836 to Daniel O'Connell.
' The Times ' of November 26 , 1835, contained these
lines about the Irish liberator :

Scum condensed of Irish bog,
RuflBan, coward, demagogue,
Boundless liar, base detractor.
Nurse of murders, treason's factor !
Spout thy filth, diffuse thy slime,
Slander is in thee no crime.
Safe from challenge, safe from law,
Who can curb thy callous jaw 1
Who would sue a convict liar ?
On a poltroon who would fire ?

Plenty of insult like that, in prose if not in verse,
was hurled at O'Connell by ' The Times,' of which,
for a long while, he took no notice. At length, in
September 1836, O'Connell having unwisely hinted
in parliament that he could, if he chose, disclose

' Carlyle, p. 306. Barnes seems to have been outrageously Tory in
his opinions at this time. On January 7, GrevUle {Memoirs, vol. iii.
p. 188) received a letter from him, 'in which he speaks with horror and
alarm of the prevailing spirit. He says the people are deaf with passion,
and in the abrupt dissolution of the late government, and the bad com-
position of this, will see a conspiracy against their liberties, and, mad
and preposterous as the idea is, there is no eradicating it from their
brains.'

86 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS oh. xvi.

matters discreditable to the private character of Lord
Lyndhurst, ' The Times ' wrote thus : ' What an unre-
deemed and unredeemable scoundrel is this O'Connell
to make such a threat, and at such a time too ! K he
has not lied more foully than it would have entered
into the imagination of the devil himself to lie, he makes
the threat with his own wife dying under his very eyes !
0, how long shall such a wretch as this be tolerated
among civilised men ! But let him mark us weU — as
surely as he dares to invade the privacy of the life of
Lord Lyndhurst, or of any other man, woman, or child
that may happen by themselves or their relatives to be
opposed to him in politics, so surely will we carry the
war into his own domiciles at Darrynane and Dublin,
and show up the whole brood of O'Connells, young and
old.' That paragraph, illustrative of journalism at its
worst — in the columns of a newspaper like ' The Times '
at any rate — just before the reign of Queen Yictoria
began, provoked a rejoinder from O'Connell of which a
part is worth quoting. ' It is an exquisite specimen,' he
wrote, ' of that party to whose base passions you are
the mercenary panderers. Of course it is not my pur-
pose to bandy words with creatures so contemptible as
you are. Your rascahty is purely venal, and has no
more of individual malignity in it than inevitably be-
longs to beings who sell their souls to literary assassi-
nation, and who from their nature would be actual
assassins if they lived at the period of history when the
wages of villains of that description bore a reasonable
proportion to the hire you receive for a different, only
because a bloodless atrocity.' Much more followed
in neglect of O'Connell's proposal not to 'bandy words''
with his traducers, and he concluded, ' I do not conde-
scend one remark on the turpitude of the party to which
" The Times " is now attached, and whose patronage it

1836. O'CONNELL ON 'THE TIMES' 87

earns by a political and personal meanness hitherto un-
known in the history of British literature. You have
made literary vileness a byword. It is really dis-
creditable to Britain that it should be known tihiat so
much atrocity, so depraved, so unprincipled a vileness
as " The Times" has exhibited, should have found any
countenance or support.' ^ O'Connell's language is
not to be justified, nor is that of ' The Times'; and
this altercation is noteworthy as an incident in the
centuries -long quarrel between English and Irish poli-
ticians which is not yet quite finished.

' The Times,' fortunately, did not profit by such
violence, and the loss of influence and circulation in-
curred by its outrageous advocacy of Tory views at a
time when the Whigs were unpopular because of their
apathy about reform brought corresponding advantage
to its chief rival, with the exception of ' The Standard,'
among the daily papers. ' Now,' said John Black, of
' The Morning Chronicle,' ' our readers wUl foUow me
wherever I like to lead them.' ^

Black did not like, however, or was not permitted
to lead his readers very far. The ' Chronicle,' in which
he had been able during more than a dozen years to
propound nearly as much Kadicalism as he chose, but
which he had allowed to sink into somewhat humdrum
ways, had fallen off considerably, and had only a daUy
sale of about 1,000 copies in 1834, when William
Clement sold it for 16,500Z. — scarcely more than a third
as much as he had paid for it in 1821 — to Sir John
Easthope, a stockbroker, and two others who had
smaller shares, Simon McGillivray, a retired merchant,
and James Duncan, a publisher. Much fresh business

^ R. Barry O'Brien, Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland, vol. i.
pp. 512-514.

* Dictionary of National Biography, vol. v. p. 109.

88 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS oh. xti.

enterprise was thrown into it, and in the course of five
years its circulation was raised to about 6,000 ; but it
was now converted into a Whig organ. ^ ' The Whigs
set to work,' said Greville, * and Hobhouse, Normanby,
Poulett Thomson, Le Marchant, and several others
wrote day after day a succession of good articles,
which soon renovated the paper and set it on its
legs.' The best articles, probably, were written by
Albany Fonblanque, who was induced to furnish a
column a week for fifteen guineas ; ^ but Fonblanque
was crippled by the political restraints imposed upon
him, and the paper, approved by the Whigs, lost favour
with the Radicals. ' While we recognise the same want
of vigour, compression, and method by which " The
Chronicle " has for a long time been characterised,'
Rintoul complained a few months after the change had
been made, ' we miss the philosophy, the sagacity, and
the curious reading which were wont to compensate
for the defects of execution. There seems to be no
unity of purpose, no presiding mind. Antagonistic
principles, irreconcilable opinions, jostle each other on
the same page.' ^

Coarser blame of ' The Chronicle ' was often uttered
by others, as when ' The Times ' spoke of its rival as
' a disgraceful morning print, which, made up of such
contributions as the licentiousness and leisure of stock-
jobbing may furnish, actually feeds on falsehood and
lies so largely day by day that one might think that
in its case " increase of appetite had grown by what it
fed on." ' On the very day on which that abuse of
the ' Chronicle ' was printed by ' The Times ' (June 13,

' Charles Mackay, Forty Years' Recollections, vol. i. p. 71 ; Grreville
Memoirs (Second Part), vol. i. p. 179.

" Mackay, Forty Years' Recollections, vol. i. p. 82.
^ Spectator, January 3, 1835.

1835. 'THE TIMES' AND 'THE CHRONICLE' 89

1835), the 'Chronicle' declared that 'the poor old
" Times," in its imbecile ravings, resembles those un-
fortunate wretches whose degraded prostitution is fast
approaching neglect and disgust,' Such spiteful and
vulgar language, however, was only a survival from
the bad manners of a former day, and more common in
papers like ' John Bull ' than in those read by respect-
able people.-^

Edward Sterling's denial that he had any power or
responsibility as editor of ' The Times ' was provoked
by an intemperate and mahcious pamphlet in which, in
January 1835, Roebuck accused Black of ' The Chronicle,'
and Fonblanque of ' The Examiner,' as well as Sterling,
of propping up the stamp duty — an allegation which
was quite untrue in Fonblanque's case — and of many
other offences.^ Sterling and Fonblanque contented
themselves with stoutly contradicting the charges
and calling for ample apology, which they received ;
but Black, whom Roebuck further attacked in other

' A few other samples may be given. The Times, on June 16, 1832,
«alled The Standard ' a stupid and priggish print, which never by any
chance deviates into candour ' ; and on August 22 in the same year The
Standard talked of ' the filthy falsehood and base insinuation put forward
by The Times.' The Times on one occasion described JTie Chronicle as
'that squirt of filthy water,' and The Morning Post was, in the judgment
of The Chronicle, ' that slop-pail of corruption.' The Courier was, ac-
cording to The Morning Herald, ' that spavined old hack ' ; and Ttie
Globe was, according to Tlie Standard, 'our blubber-headed contem-
porary.' The Age of May 4, 1838, had two characteristic paragraphs :
' It is actually impossible to express the unmixed disgust with which we
have read a series of beastly attacks upon his Royal Highness the Duke
-of Cumberland in that most filthy of all filthy papers, the old Times' ; and
' Old Jerry Bentham's paper. The Olobe, is, we perceive, in high dudgeon
with us for calling Mr. Peel a rat. It adds that we have designated Lord
Lyndhurst a rat also. To the first we answer, no one but such an old
•dotard as the author of " Chrestomathia " doubts it : and to the last, that
it was not we, but Cobbett, Jerry's old friend the bone-grabber, who chris-
tened the lord chancellor Rat Copley.'

' Roebuck, The Stamped Press of London, and its Morality.

90 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS oh. xvu

pamphlets, challenged his slanderer to a duel — perhaps-
the last instance among Englishmen, or rather Scotch-
men, of resort to this mode of settling journalistic quar-
rels. The duel came off in November, when Black,
with McGillivray as his second, went down to Christ-
church, in Hampshire, and there twice exchanged shots
with Roebuck ; but neither party was hurt, and peace
was concluded over a jorum of toddy. ^

Black, though Barnes's senior by only two years,
was an editor of an older school, and found it difficult
to maintain the competition of ' The Chronicle ' with
' The Times ' with such fresh vigour as was required of
him by Sir John Easthope. He acquitted himself well
in it, however. With ampler funds at his disposal, he
increased his staff of writers, besides making use of all
the amateur and not always helpful help afforded him
by the leading Whig politicians, both before and after-
Lord Melbourne's return to office.^ Charles Builer and
Lord Holland were frequent contributors, and occa-
sional articles came from many others. Joseph Parkes,
the parliamentary agent of the Whigs, was a constant
visitor at Black's dingy office in the Strand. ' Every
eminent man in the wide world of British and Irish

' Mackay, Forty Years' Recollections, vol. i. p. 90.

* ' I remember once, when assistant sub-editor of The Morning '
Chronicle,' says Dr. Charles Mackay (Through the Long Day, vol. i. p. 52),,
' that I waited on the Duke of Sussex at the Hyde Park Hotel, where he
was resident for a few days, with the proof of a leading article which he
had either written or dictated. The duke was an earnest and consistent .
Whig, and had fallen into disfavour with his royal father and with
George IV. I do not at this distance of time remember the subject of
the royal article, except that it was in support of some Liberal measure,
and that the style was crude and involved. I remember well that the :
proof was a rough one, and contained several grammatical as well as
literal errors that required correction. I also remember that the duke
detected the errors very readily, but that he was not able to correct them
secundmrn artem, and that he had ultimately to ask me to show him how to
make such technical marks as would be understood in the printing office.''

1835-1841. 'THE CHRONICLE' UNDER BLACK 91

politics sought his aid,' we are told, ' and he kept the
secrets entrusted to him with scrupulous fidelity.'^
Paying special attention to foreign affairs, he appointed
Michael Joseph Quia as foreign editor of the ' Chronicle,'
and Eyre Evans Crowe was sent to France as its Paris
correspondent. George Hogarth was sub-editor for
some time untU, on Hogarth's being made musical and
theatrical editor, and also editor of ' The Evening
Chronicle,' started in. 1837, the post was filled in suc-
cession by John Payne Collier, James Eraser, and
Charles Mackay — the latter being preferred to Thack-
eray, who wrote art criticisms and was a candidate for
more constant employment.^ Among the reporters
were William Hazlitt the younger and Chaxies Dickens,
whose father had for a long time been connected with
the paper. Dickens, commencing his literary career as
reporter for ' The True Sun,' and working during two
years for ' The Mirror of Parliament,' went to ' The
Chronicle ' in 1835, when he was twenty-three, and
soon became its most zealous agent in the reporting of
country meetings and important occurrences. ' There
never was anybody connected with newspapers who in
the same space of time had so much express and post-
chaise experience as I,' he wrote in the course of a
lively account of his adventures, in rushing across
country, writing his articles as he travelled, and often
breaking down on the way, and being hard pushed to^
reach London in time to supply the printers with copy
and to be rewarded ' with never-to-be-forgotten com-
pliments by the late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest
of Scotch from the broadest of hearts I ever knew.'
Dickens fully earned his five guineas a week, and also
the two guineas extra that were allowed to him for

' Gentlemcm's Magazine, August 1855, p. 211.

° Mackay, Tli/rough the Long Day, vol. i. pp. 55, 56.

92 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS oh. xti.

some of the ' Sketches by Boz,' of which two or three a
week appeared in ' The Evening Chronicle ' after 1837.^

Of Black and his contributors many anecdotes are
told ; ^ but the most memorable refers to an interview
he had with Lord Melbourne while the Whigs were in
office. ' Mr. Black,' said the premier, at the close of
a long conversation on political affairs, ' you are the
only person who comes to see me who forgets who I am.
You forget that I am prime minister.' Black opened
his eyes, coloured up, and was stammering out a ques-
tion as to the way in which he had offended, when
Melbourne proceeded, ' Everybody else takes special
care to remember it, but I wish they would forget it,
for they only remember it to ask for places and favours.
Now, Mr. Black, you never ask me for anything, and I
wish you would ; for, seriously, I should be most happy
to do anything in my power to serve you.' ' I am
truly obliged to you,' answered Black, ' but I don't want
anything. I am editor of " The Morning Chronicle ; "
I like my business, and I live happily on my income.'
' Then, by God, I envy you ! ' exclaimed the premier,
' and you are the only man I ever did.' ^

Black's philosophy was put to the test in 1843,

' Forster, Life of Clmrles Dickens, vol. i. pp. 75, 76, 79, 84.

" See especially Dr. Mackay's Forty Yea/rs' JRecollections, and Through
the Long Day, and Grant's Newspaper Press. 'Black's rooms,' we
are told (Gentleman^ s Magazine, August 1855, p. 211), ' were so encum-
bered with books, both on the walls and on the floor — the gleanings of
some half a century — ^that it was difficult to walk through them. At one
time the pair was obliged to creep into bed at the end, the bedsides being
piled with dirty volumes of divinity and poUtics, and defying entrance in
any other way ; for it was one of the editor's peculiarities that he would
not have his books moved or dusted by any hand but his own.' Mrs.
Black was 'something like Meg Merrilies in person.' Black's dog,
Oato, was nearly as great an object of interest and affection to his friends
as the eccentric, but kind-hearted and high-minded, editor himself.

^ Gentleman's Magazine, August 1855, p. 213. Some time before,
when Melbourne was not allowed to make Sydney Smith a bishop, he had
vowed that he would put Black into lawn before he died.

1635-1841. "THE CHEONIOLE ' UNDEB BLACK 93

when he was summarily dismissed by Sir John East-
hope, whose daughter had lately married Andrew Doyle,
then foreign editor of ' The Morning Chronicle,' and
who wanted the post for his son-in-law. By selling the
enormous library he had collected, and in other ways,
Black raised an annuity of 150^., with which, at the age
of sixty, he retired to a small house on the Thames that
his old friend Walter Coulson assigned to him at a
nominal rent, and there he died in 1855.-^

Difficulties in the management of the paper had
arisen as far back as March 1839. ' They are in a
great rage and no small dismay at the same time,' Gre-
viUe then wrote concerning the official Whigs, ' at the
conduct of " The Morning Chronicle," which has turned
half against them in a most extraordinary manner ;
that is, it is urging the Radicals to seize this oppor-
tunity of compelling the government to go their lengths,
and to make such compliance the condition of their
support. Government are so indignant that they want
to break off with " The Chronicle " altogether, but then
they will be left in the awkward predicament of having no
morning paper whatever in their service. What nettles
them the more is that they made " The Chronicle " what
it is, and raised it by their exertions from the lowest
ebb to its present veiy good circulation. Easthope
makes a clear 10,000?. a year by the speculation ; but
now, seeing or thinking he sees greater advantages to
be got by floating down the Radical stream than by

' Gentleman's Magaeine, August 1855, p. 213. ' I am deeply grieved
about Black,' Dickens wrote to John Forster on May 3, 1843; 'sorry
from my heart's core. If I could find him out I would go and comfort
him tliis moment.' Some comfort was offered in the shape of a dinner
at Greenwich, at which Black was the guest of Dickens, Thackeray,
Fonblanque, Shell, Charles BuUer, Southwood Smith, W. J. Foz,
Macready, Maclise, and Forster. (Forster, Life of Charles Dickens, voL
ii. pp. 31, 32.)

94 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xvi.

assisting in the defence of this government, he forgets
past favours and connection, and is ready to abandon
them to their fate. It is rather an ominous sign, and
marks strongly their falling estimation. They think it
is Durham who has got hold of Easthope and persuades
him to take this course. He declares he is so beset
with applications, advice, and threats, that he has no
alternative, and must take the line he does or ruin the
sale of his paper.' ^ If Easthope made the change from
policy or under pressure, we may be quite sure that
Black cheerfully agreed to it on the score of principle.

It was no easy matter to support the Whig adminis-
tration during the six years following Sir Robert Peel's
defeat in April 1835. The Whigs in the House of
Commons, who really approved of Lord Melbourne's
shilly-shallying, do-nothing policy were but half as
numerous as the Tories, who, divided among themselves,
united in opposing it ; and the government had to steer
its perilous course by constant tackings, in which it
alternately used Tory help to thwart the Radicals, who
were far stronger in this parliament than in any previous
one, and the Liberals, as many Whig sympathisers with
Radicalism now called themselves, and made such
grudging concessions to the Radicals and Liberals as
were necessary to secure their aid in keeping the Tories
out of otfice. In this tedious and discreditable process
the Radicals gained some things, including the reduction
of the newspaper stamp duty in 1836, and several social
reforms, such as the lessening of death penalties and
other improvements in the administration of justice, the
suppression of the slave trade, and the establishment of
the penny post ; and it was for the sake of reforms like
these that independent Radicals, among whom Albany
Fonblanque was foremost in journalism, gave qualified

' OreviUe Memoirs (Second Part), vol. i. p. 179.

1835-1841. THE OTHER DAILY PAPERS 95

support to the Melbourne administration. But the
line taken by Fonblanque in ' The Examiner ' could not
be taken, or could only be taken cautiously and spas-
modically, by Black and his writers in ' The Morning
Chronicle,' so long as it professed to be a ministerial
organ. The advantages accruing to ' The Chronicle '
as a semi-ofl&cial journal were of doubtful value, and,
standing alone among the morning papers, its embar-
rassments were to some extent shared by its friendly
rivals in the evening press.

Of these there were now five, three of them being
very ably conducted on different liberal levels. ' The
Globe,' still in the hands of Colonel Kobert Torrens,
took precedence as the recognised channel for miuis-
terial communications, especially favoured by Lord John
Russell. ' The Sun,' beiQg under no restraint, and with
Murdo Young for its enterprising conductor, was bolder
in its politics. Yet bolder was ' The True Sun,' which,
like ' The Sun,' had ceased to be a mouthpiece of
Toryism, and was at this time owned by Daniel Whittle
Harvey, and edited by William Johnson Fox, who was
a,lso one of the writers for ' The Morning Chronicle.'
' The Evening Chronicle' was shortlived ; and ' The
Courier,' though now claiming to be Liberal, was of too
uncertain politics and of too small circulation to be of
any account.

The Tories had ' The Standard ' as their only and
sufficient champion among the evening papers. Its
success, under Giffard's editorship, along with the much
greater success of ' The Times,' rendered insignificant
the two other Tory papers, ' The Morning Herald ' and
' The Morning Post.' The kindest thing that a Tory
critic could say about ' The Post ' in 1836 was that it was
' the pet of the petticoats, the darling of the boudoir, the
oracle of the drawing-room, and the soft recorder of ball-

96 BARNES AND HIS ElVALS oh. xvi-

room beauties and drawing-room presentations.' 'The
high favour in which " The Post " stands in. the bowers
of ladyhood,' it was added, ' is well deserved by that
journal. In all matters interesting to the female world
of fashion this paper has always the best information,
which it employs in a discreet manner, imparting just
as much of private affairs as the public ought to know,
and no more.' According to the same informant, ' The
Herald ' was to be commended for ' the variety of its
matter and the moderation of its tone,' being, with its
Tory leanings, a more ardent supporter of Lord Palmer-
ston's foreign policy than even ' The Chronicle,' ham-
pered as it was by Whig traditions, could be.'^

More interesting than the commonplace history of
these papers is the record of a new and unfortunate ex-
periment in journalism which was made in 1836. Fore-
seeing the opportunities for fresh newspaper enterprise
that would result from the reduction of the stamp duty,
but not estimating the expenses necessary to such a
venture, Dr. Black, a friend of Sir William Molesworth,
and others, established the Metropolitan Newspaper
Company, with a capital of 60,000^., of which 42,000L
in all was called up, and, having bought or borrowed
the connection of ' The Public Ledger,' merged it in ' The
Constitutional,' which was started on September 15,
the first day on which penny stamps were allowed to
be used. Offering as much matter for fourpence half-
penny as had formerly been supplied for sevenpence,
the new journal fairly claimed to be ' the firstfruit of the
penny stamp, the eldest born of the reduction.' Its
projectors professed no gratitude, however, for such
facilities as were afforded them by the change in the
law. ' We must frankly declare, although we may be
censured for the admission,' it was said in the preliminary

' Fraser^s Magazine, May 1836, p. 623.

1836. 'THE CONSTITUTIONAL' 97

article, ' that we do not feel any natural affection, the
least filial reverence, for this our Whig parent. We
thank him for our existence, and will serve him while
we must ; but our love and sympathy belong to an-
other. Abolition is the spirit whom we serve.' The
reduction of the newspaper stamp from fourpence to
a penny was accepted, not as a boon, but as the im-
position of a new tyranny after the old tyranny had
become too intolerable to be longer mauitakied. ' Ejaow-
ledge must, for the present, go on bearing the badge of
Ignorance in the form of a penny, and Liberty, as let
out by the Whigs, must be content to dance in fetters
for a season. Hope must wear the livery of Fear, and
the new order of thiags adopt, in a mitigated form, the
symbol of the old.' ^

It will be seen from those statements and metaphors
that the originators of ' The Constitutional ' were uncom-
promising Radicals, or, as they said, ' reformers in the
fullest meaning of the term.' ' " The Constitutional," '
they announced, among other things, ' will advocate the
shortening of the duration of parliaments, an extension
of the suffrage, and the vote by ballot. To the bene-
ficial influence of these measures, were they now in
operation, it is difficult to assign a limit. It would
diffuse itself, as if by a magical movement, even over
the House of Peers. Obstruction would see at once the
impossibility of holding out. To secure quietly a re-
form of the Lords it is only necessary to administer a
little more to the Commons.' ^

These enthusiasts were too sanguine, both in their
general sjaeculations and in the conduct of their own
heroic little enterprise. They made a brave commence-
ment, however. They appointed as editor Samuel
Laman Blanchard, a smart and versatile writer, who

^ Constitutional, September 15, 1836. ^ Ibid.

VOL. II. H

98 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xvi.

had had four years' experience in the management of
' The True Sun,' and Blanchard's great friend, Douglas
Jerrold, was theatrical critic.^ Thornton Hunt, Leigh
Hunt's son, was sub-editor,^ and great pains were taken
to secure lively and accurate intelligence from abroad
as well as from Ireland and various parts of England.
' The Constitutional ' had its ' own correspondent '
in Spain, whose letters were signed M. R. M., and it
established a special express from France in opposition
to the organisation already existing and jointly paid
for by the five other morning papers, whose proprie-
tors, tor economical reasons, ignored their differences in
this particular, but jealously excluded the interloper
from their syndicate.^ The correspondent sent by
' The Constitutional ' to Paris was William Makepeace
Thackeray, now a young man of five-and-twenty, who
here had his first important employment in journalism,
though he had already been an occasional contributor
to ' The Morning Chronicle ' and other papers.*
Thackeray's letters, signed T. T. — of which there were
generally three or four a week, and forty-four in all
before the end of February, -when, doubtless to save
expense, he was brought home and made foreign editor
— were written with remarkable vigour and keen ap-
prehension of the political conditions of the time. For
instance, writing on December 26, he said, ' You will
complain that my letters have only this one theme of
Louis Philippe ; but recollect that the government in
this country is the king. If it had not been for the

' Poetical Works of Laman Blancliard (introductory memoir by
Blanchard Jerrold), p. is.

' Knight Hunt, vol. ii. p. 188. ' Gonstitutional, July 1, 1837.

* A writer in the Athenmum (February 12, 1887) alleges — I do not
know on what authority— that it was his venture in The Constitutional
that ' impoverished the youthful Thackeray' and obliged him to follow
journalism for a living. Thackeray's stepfather, Major Carmichael Smyth,
was the chairman of the company.

1836-1837. THACKERAY AND ' THE CONSTITUTIONAL ' 99

king, you would have had Spain tranquil ; you would
not have had M. Guizot or the laws of September ; and
now, please Grod, there is a chance of ridding the country
of both one and the other.' ' Without Louis Philippe,'
he added, ' the revolution would have spread through
the world. It is one of this man's boasts and titles to
glory — he is proud of the cunning apostacy which has
cheated the nation out of the ends proposed by it in
placing him on the throne, which has so dammed and
twisted the great current of public opinion as to leave
that a shallow and muddy stream which was to have
flowed, not through France merely, but through
Europe.' ^

' The Constitutional ' was as outspoken in its discus-
sion of home as of foreign aflfaii's. Though it scrupu-
lously avoided all coarseness of language, and set an
example in polite controversy which ' The Times ' or
' The Chronicle ' might have followed with advantage,
it found as much fault with its Whig as with its Tory
contemporaries. ' " The Grlobe " is a Whig paper,' it
said in one of its articles, ' which " The Constitutional"
is not,' ^ It expressed its policy in ridicule as well as
in argument, in rhyme as well as in prose. In a string
of verses entitled ' The Two Criminals,' for example, it
made fun of the indiscriminate way in which Daniel
O'Connell and Joseph Hume were held responsible for
all the blunders and misfortunes of the time :

While English, laws exclude the many

From all the social rights of man,
While votes shall be withheld from any,

The blame must fall on Joe and Dan :
If Tory tricksters make Lord John iU,
It is the fault of that O'Connell :
If Whigs for ever fret and fume,
It is the fault of Joseph Hume.'

• Gomtitutional, January 2, 1837. " Ibid., November 5, 1836.

3 Ibid., November 17, 1836.

H 2

100 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xvr.

But the promoters of ' The Constitutional ' soon
found that its impartial condemnation of both Whigs
and Tories was not agreeable to any large body of
readers, or that they had not money enough to keep it
alive till it could force its way into public favour, j^.t
the close of 1836 they published a list of influential
supporters who had promised to pay a twelvemonth's
subscriptions in advance, and the list included the names
of Greorge Grrote, Sir William Molesworth, Joseph
Hume, Charles BuUer, Roebuck, William Ewart,
Perronet Thompson, Benjamin Hall, and Richard
Potter. In February 1837 they increased the size of
the paper, and raised its price from fourpence-halfjsenny
to the usual fivepence ; but early in June they returned
to the original size without altering the price. On
June 22 they put the paper into mourning on the
occasion of William IV. 's death, and they continued
the mourning till July 1, when, in No. 249, they bade
farewell to their readers. ' The mourning border which
we recently put on,' it was then griml}'- said, ' was but
the shadow of the coming event.' ' The Constitutional '
disappeared, and ' The Public Ledger ' was revived by
its former proprietor, to be carried on on its old lines
as a medium for shipping and other mercantile intelli-
gence. Laman Blanchard then became editor of ' The
Courier,' until, on its being converted into a Tory
journal, he was employed by Fonblanque on ' The
Examiner.' ^

Radicalism was not strong enough at this time to
support a daily paper, especially in the face of such for-
midable competition as was offered by ' The Times,' in
which a far ampler supply of news than any other
paper could aff^ord to coUect and issue atoned, in the
opinion of many readers, for whatever faults they might

' Poetical Works of Laman Blaiichard, p. 15.

1830-1840. 'THE "WEEKLY DISPATCH' 101

:find in its political views ; and the Radicals had now
a, good choice of weekly papers on which could be spent
as much money as most of them had to spare. ' The
Examiner' and ' The Spectator' satisfied the more in-
telligent readers, and, among others adapted to less
fastidious tastes, ' The Weekly Dispatch ' took the lead.
For some time after its commencement in 1801,
and styled ' Bell's Weekly Dispatch ' until it passed out
of its founder's hands, ' The Dispatch ' had no very
pronounced politics, and catered chiefly for the lovers
of highly-spiced news, reports of prize-fights and such
matters. But it was a Radical paper before it be-
came the property of Alderman James Harmer, and
under his control it was a vigorous advocate of re-
form. Harmer was a remarkable man. The son of a
Spitalfields weaver, and an orphan at the age of ten,
he worked his way so successfully that in 1833, before
he was sixty, he was able to retire from a solicitor's
business, which had for some time been yielding him
about 4,000Z. a year. When he died, in 1853, his
-estate was valued at more than 300,000^.-^ Most of that
wealth had been derived from ' The Dispatch,' which he
had managed with great skill from a commercial point of
view, and in which the weekly article signed Publi-
cola, written by various hands, and for some time by
William Johnson Fox, was famous for its scathing de-
nunciation of political, legal, and social abuses. Before
the reduction of the stamp duty, which, with a short-
sighted view to the interests of the proprietor, it stoutly
opposed, ' The Dispatch ' claimed to have a circulation
of thirty thousand, at the high price of eightpence-
halfpenny ; and when most of the papers reduced their
price from sevenpence to fivepence, it continued to
flourish as a sixpenny paper, selling, it was said, sixty

' Oentleman's Magazine, August 1853, pp. 201, 202.

102 BARNES AJSTD HIS EIVALS ch. xti.

thousand copies a week in 1840. One among many-
tokens of its popularity was tlie imitation of its title,
not only by Hetherington in his unstamped ' Twopenny
Dispatch ' in 1834, but also by the proprietors of ' The
New Weekly Dispatch,' which was started in 1833.
The latter ran for no more than seventy weeks, how-
ever, and the former was siippressed by the more rigid
enforcement of the law after the lessening of the stamp
duty in 1836. Alderman Harmer's paper continued to
prosper, and prospered all the more in consequence of
the frequent attacks that were made upon it and him.

Those attacks were especially violent in the autumn
of 1840. Elected alderman of Farringdon Without in
1833, and having served as sheriff in 1834, Harmer
expected to be made lord mayor in his turn at Michael-
mas 1840 ; but the scandal, as they said it would be,
was averted by his Tory opponents, who had a might j
champion in ' The Times.'

The crusade was begun on September 21, when ' The
Times ' published an elaborate protest against Harmer's
election, signed by several liverymen of the city of
London, who quoted against him a number of Radical
utterances that had appeared in ' The Dispatch.' ' The
paper,' they declared, ' can only be appropriately
described as a public nuisance, and that of the most
fearful character.' They complained that it assailed not
merely Whig government and Tory government, 'but
all government whatever, ridiculing alike all systems
and all views, and plainly counselling anarchy and con-
fusion ' ; that it had ' personally insulted the sovereign and
her consort,' had ' broadly and repeatedly recommended
the overthrow of the monarchy,' and had 'extolled
and encouraged every instance of rebellion ' ; and, worst
of all, that, not content with opposing the Established
Church or encouraging dissent, it ' scoffed at all kinds

1840. 'THE times' AND 'THE DISPATCH' 103

and forms of religion whatever,' and 'constantly and
deliberately reviled the Christian faith and its profes-
sors of every class and denomination, and gave the pre-
ference to infidels and blasphemers of every description.' ^
These complaints ' The Times ' endorsed in a furious
article published on the same day as the liverymen's
protest. ' The object is not merely to reject Alderman
Harmer,' ' The Times ' avowed. ' It is far higher and
more important than this ; it is to stamp with the
blackest possible mark of public reprobation the prin-
ciples of " The Dispatch " in the person of its chief and
responsible proprietor.' The battle was fiercely fought.
Nearly every day between September 22 and October 7
' The Times ' published a column of argument and abuse,
and when, as the result of the poll taken among the
citizens, it was found that Harmer had obtaiaed only
2,294 votes against 2,713 given for the alderman next
in I'otation, the prose song of triumph, issued on
October 9, extended over more than two columns.
' The Times ' took credit for having saved London from
the appalling disgrace of having Harmer- for lord
mayor ; but it had provided ' The Weekly Dispatch '

' Here are a few of the more obnoxious sentences quoted by these
shocked liverymen : — ' Protestantism, Catholicism, Methodism, or any
other ism, is only a cant term to facilitate the impositions upon the mind,
which impositions are always tricks to arrive at the breeches' pockets '
(Weekly Dispatch, September 1, 1839). — 'Socialism and Chartism are
only the misdirected efforts to throw off the dreadfully intolerable curse of
superstitious systems ' (February 2, 1840). — ' There is no more moral
depravity in being an infidel than in being a clergyman. . . . Blasphemy
is a word of no meaning whatever. It is a cunning coinage of priestcraft '
(March 15, 1840). And, on the occasion of the government's proposal to
make provision for Prince Albert, 'A young girl of eighteen governs
about four-and-twenty millions of people at home, and about a hundred
millions in the colonies and India. For this task the young lady takes
871,400t. per annum, and when she manies she pleads poverty, and calls
upon her people, who are in a great state of distress, to support her hus-
band by a further allowance out of the taxes ' (February 2, 1840).

104 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ctt. xvi.

with a splendid advertisement, and had only damaged
its own reputation among all who were not bigoted
Tories.

Though in the maia a consistent advocate of Tory
views at this time, and giving them more powerful help
than they obtained from the combined or rival assistance
of all the other and avowedly Tory papers, ' The Times '
continued to be independent when it chose. ' The
question of absorbing interest is now,' Greville wrote,
on January 24, 1839, ' the repeal or alteration of
the corn laws, and the declaration of war agaiast
them on the part of " The Times " has produced a great
effect, and is taken as conclusive evidence that they can-
not be maintained, from the rare sagacity with which
this journal watches the turn of public affairs. Besides
that, its advocacy wUl be of the greatest use in advanc-
ing the cause which it already had perceived was likely
to prevail. The rest of the Conservative press, "The
Morning Herald," " Post," and " Standard," support
the corn laws, and the latter has engaged in a single
combat with " The Times," conducted with a kind of
chivalrous courtesy, owing to the concurrence of their
general politics, very unusual in newspaper warfare,
and with great ability on both sides.' ^ The attitude
taken up by ' The Times ' on the question of corn-law
reform was only one among many instances of its
prescience and skill in shrewdly directing both ministers
and the people in ways that, rightly or wrongly, it
approved. In such clever journalism as Barnes
achieved it was by no means easy to distinguish
between leading and following, between the drivers
and the driven.

A curious instance of the use that politicians had
now come to make of the press occurred early in 1839.

' Qrevilk Memoirs (Second Part), vol. i. p. 158.

1839-1840. THE CLEVERNESS OF ' THE TIMES ' 105

Lord Durham had just handed in to the government
his momentous report on the administration of Canada,
chiefly prepared by Charles Buller, which was to revo-
lutionise the whole colonial poUcy of the British empire ;
but it contained two paragraphs respectiag church or
crown lands to which the government objected, and
which Durham consented to alter. These paragraphs
had been inserted at the instigation of Gibbon Wakefield,
who was determined that they should not be tampered
with. He accordingly sent to Barnes a copy of the
original report, before it or any new edition of it could be
laid before parliament, and the whole lengthy document
was printed in ' The Times ' of February 10. Lord
Durham's indignation thereat was great but futile. The
original document had been published, and could not
therefore be modified with decency. ' The Times ' had,
moreover, given another proof of its importance, and
had forestalled the ministerial organ, ' The Morning
Chronicle,' in its procuring of official information.
Lord Durham, Greville tells us, had handed a copy of
his report to Sir John Easthope, 'but with an injunction
not to publish it ; and Easthope told him he wished he
had kept his copy to himself, for he could have obtained
one elsewhere which he should have been at liberty to
publish if he had not accepted his with the prohibition.' ^
The Melbourne administration, more impotent
than ever during the two years after it obtained a
new lease of feeble life in consequence of the queen's
quarrel with Sir Robert Peel over the ' bedchamber
question,' was further weakened by dissensions in the
cabinet throughout 1840, which were chiefly due to Lord
Palmerston's adoption, as secretary of state for foreign
afiiairs, of a different course from that approved by
most of his colleagues. The English bearings of the

^ Greville Memoirs (Second Part), vol. i. p. 163, and note

106 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS oh. xvi.

policy of Louis Philippe's government and the Syrian,
question were the special grounds of dispute, in. which
the newspapers took sides. Peel and most of the Tories
agreed with the orthodox Whigs in favouring Thiers,
Guizot, and their party, and ' The Times ' shared then*
views. ' The Morning Chronicle,' on the other hand,
was a zealous supporter of Palmerston, and gave great
offence to Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, and
others by its plain speaking. Greville reports on
October 1 that Lord John had written a letter to
Gruizot, then ambassador in London, in which ' he begged
he would not consider that the articles which had lately
appeared in " The Morning Chronicle " and " Observer "
were approved of by the government, and repudiated any
connection or concurrence with them ; he had pro-
nounced in the cabinet a violent philippic against the
newspapers, which was entirely directed at Palmerston,
who he knows very well writes constantly in them.'
' An article appeared in " The Times," ' Greville adds,
' strongly in favour of peace and harmony with France,
and the acceptance of the Egyptian pasha's offers.
Guizot, of course, was delighted with it.' And next
day we read, ' " The Morning Chronicle " puts forth an
article having every appearance of being written by
Palmerston himself (as I have no doubt it was), most
violent, declamatory, and insulting to France. I made
the Duke of Bedford go to Lord John and tell him this
ought not to be endured, and that, if I were he, I would
not sit for one hour in the cabinet with a man who
could agree to take a certain line (with his colleagues)
overnight, and publish a furious attack upon the same
the next morning. Lord John said he had already
written to Melbourne about it, that Palmerston had
positively denied having anything to do with " The
Morning Chronicle," and he did not see what more he

1840-1841. LORD PALMERSTON AND 'THE TIMES' 107

could do ; but he owned that all his confidence in him
was gone.' ^ This is amusing, yet instructive withal,
and not solely as a scrap of newspaper history.

The writer of the troublesome articles was not Lord
Palmerston, but Eyre Evans Crowe, who, for some time
Paris correspondent of ' The Morning Chronicle,' had
now come back to London to write leaders for it on
foreign policy, and in opposition both to the temporising
Whigs and to Peel's friends in the ' Times ' office. The
line taken up by ' The Chronicle,' however, was evi-
dently sanctioned, if not dictated, by Palmerston,^ who
never forgave ' The Times ' for opposing him. ' Mel-
bourne told Clarendon,' GreviUe wrote in January 1841,
' that Palmerston was still very sore at the articles
which had appeared in " The Times." Clarendon said he
could not imagine what Palmerston had to complain of
in " The Times," as, though there had been some articles
attacking him, the far greater number had been in his
favour. Melbourne said there had been a great deal
the other way, and that Palmerston and his Tory friends
with whom he had communicated had been constantly
surprised to find that there was an influence stronger
than theii' own in that quarter.' ®

Though it supported the Russellites, who in this
respect were in some agreement with the Peelites,
agaiast the Palmerstonians, ' The Times,' all through
the seven years of Lord Melbourne's premiership, and
with variation from its usual practice, sided with the
party out of office, and its Toryism was as consistent as

1 CheviUe Memoirs (Second Part), vol. i. pp. 323, 324, 326.

" ' Sir John Eaathope,' says Dr. Mackay (Through the Long Day, vol. i.
p. 268) ' was particularly noted for his all but slavish worship of Lord
Palmerston. His devotion to that chief was ultimately rewarded by a
baronetcy.'

' GreviUe Memoirs (Second Part), vol. i. p. 362.

108 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xvr.

Sterling and other writers under Barnes's editorship
could make it. On other than party politics, however,
and on all questions that were not directly concerned in
the support of the Tory views at that time in the
ascendant, Barnes allowed great freedom to his con-
tributors, and, so long as they did work he liked,
accepted and invited contributions from men of all
parties. Though Moore was still the chief writer of
the verse for which room was often found in ' The
Times,' other poets or rhymers were admitted to its
columns, Macaulay being of the number.-^

A more frequent contributor was Thackeray, who
appears to have undertaken the reviewing of books
vmder Barnes, for about a year at any rate, almost
immediately after the failure of ' The Constitutional,' as
well as some ten years later. ' I turned off far better
things then than I do now,' he said when he had be-
come famous, ' and I wanted money sadly ; but how
little I got for my work ! It makes me laugh at what
" The Times " pays me now when I think of the old
days, and how much better I wrote for them then, and
got a shilling where I now get ten.' ''^ One of his
earliest articles, and perhaps the first, appearing on
August 3, 1837, was a long review of Carlyle's ' French
Revolution.' Others were on ' The Duchess of Marl-
borough's Private Correspondence,' on ' A Diary Illus-
trative of the Times of George IV.,' ^ on 'Memoirs

' Russell, Memoirs cfcc. of Thomas Moore, vol. vi. p. 213.

^ J. T. Field's Yesterdays mith Authors, p. 27.

^ This -was the book that Thackeray, in The Ydlowplush Papers, de-
nounced in Fraser's Magazine. As Thackeray elsewhere spoke plainly but
honestly about George IV. and his court, these sentences from the article
in The Times are interesting : ' We never met with a book more pernicious
or more mean. ... It does worse than chronicle the small beer of a
court ; the materials of this book are infinitely more base ; the loud tittle-
tattle of the sweepers of the Princess of Wales's bedchamber or dressing-

1837-1840. THACICERAY AND 'THE TIMES' 109

of Holt, the Irisli Rebel,' and, besides much else, on
' The Poetical Works of Dr. Southej'-, collected by him-
self,' the latter beiag published on April 17, 1838.^
After that date no other contribution of Thackeray's
during this period can be traced, except an article on
Fielding, which he wrote in 1840. ' " The Times "
gave me five guineas,' he said in 1850. ' I recollect I
thought it rather shabby pay.' ^

Another of the large number of writers who helped
to increase the interest and consequently the circulation
of ' The Times,' was Benjamin Disraeli, who made his
first known appearance among journalists as an indig-
nant controversialist with ' The Globe,' which in 1835
had called attention to his change from Radicalism to
Toryism. Disraeli defended himself in ' The Times,'
and followed this with the Runnymede letters ^ which, in
feeble imitation of Junius, he wrote in the early months
of 1836.

The ' Times ' now furnished a constant succession
of letters fi'om outsiders, and miscellaneous articles, ia-
cludmg a much greater amount and variety of foreign

room, her table or ante-room, the reminiscences of industrious eaves-
dropping, the careful records of her unguarded moments, and the
publication of her confidential correspondence, are the chief foundations
for this choice work. . . . There is no need now to be loyal to your
prince. Take his bounty while living, share liis purse and his table, gain
his confidence, learn his secrets, flatter him, cringe to him, vow to him
an unbounded fidelity, and, when he is dead, write a diary and betray
him ! '

1 The Athenseum, July 30, 1887.

2 ' My wife was just sickening at that moment,' he said in the same
letter, to Mrs. Brookfield. ' 1 wrote it at Margate, where I had taken
her, and used to walk out three miles to a little bowling-green, and write
there in an arbour— coming home and wondering what was the melancholy
oppressing the poor little woman. How queer it is to be carried back all
of a sudden to that time, and all that belonged to it, and read this article
over ! Doesn't the apology for Fielding read lite an apology for some-
body else too ? ' — A Collection of Letters by W. M. Thackeray (1887), p. 125.

' T. P. O'Connor, Benjamin Disraeli; a Biography, pp. 214-254.

110 BARNES AND HIS RIVALS ch. xyi.

correspondence than any other paper could procure or
find room for, The page was not quite so large as it
afterwards became, but ' The Times ' regularly appeared
as a sheet of eight pages, whereas all the other journals,
except on rare occasions, were still limited to four ; and
if the chief credit for the enterprise thus shown devolves
on Walter, as the principal proprietor and business
manager, it must be remembered that Barnes was re-
sponsible for filling what was for those days a journal
of enormous size with readable matter. ' The Times '
was vastly improved as a newspaper, in the sense of a
collector and retailer of information, during the twenty-
four years of Barnes's direction of it, and whatever
might be thought of its political honesty or political
wisdom, it had in his time, and largely through his
influence, acquired such authority as an instructor and
controller of public opinion, especially with the well-to-
do portion of the conmiunity, which considered itself,
and was in large measure, the ' governing class,' as no
previous editor could have dreamt of Barnes was the
precursor of Delane.

He died in harness, and almost without warning,
when he was only fifty-six, on May 7, 1841, four weeks
before the defeat of the Melbourne administration
which led to Sir Robert Peel's return to office.
'His death,' GrevUle wrote next day, 'is an incalculable
loss to " The Times," in whose aflFairs his talents, good
sense, and numerous connections gave him a preponde-
rating influence. The vast power exercised by " The
Times " renders this a most important event, and it
will be curious to see in what hands the regulating and
■directing power will hereafter be placed. Latterly, it
must be owned that its apparent caprices and incon-
sistency have deprived it of all right and title, and
much of its power, to influence the opinions of others ;

1841. THE END OF BABNES'S WOEK 111

but that has been the consequence of the extraordinary
variety of its connections, and the conflicting opinions
which have been alternately, and sometimes almost if
not quite simultaneously, permitted to discharge them-
selves in its columns.' ^

^ GremUe Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. p. 2. Greville adds :
' Barnes was a man of considerable acquirements, a good scholar, and
well versed in English, especially old dramatic literature.' At dinner
GreviUe found him (vol. i. p. 123) ' an agreeable man enough, with evi-
dently a vast deal of information, but his conversation bears no marks of
that extraordinary vigour and pungency for which the articles in The Times
are so distinguished.' In 1827 Sterling had told Moore that Barnes was
' the best good man with the worst-natured tongue' ; he 'never heard him
speak of anyone otherwise than depreciatingly, but the next moment after
abusing a man he would go any lengths to serve him.' — Moore's Diary,
vol. V. p. 171.

112

CHAPTER XVII.

WITH A PENNY STAMP.

1836—1850.

On the lowering of the stamp duty from fourpence —
or rather, as a discount of twenty per cent, had been
allowed, from threepence and a fifth of a penny — ^to a
penny, which took place on September 15, 1836, the
price of most newspapers was reduced from sevenpence,
till then the usual charge, to fivepence, but for several,
especially the weekly papers, a reduction of only a penny
was made, and in nearly all cases the proprietors gained
more than the readers by the change. They were gainers
also, and to a yet larger extent, by the lowering of the
tax on advertisements from three shillings and sixpence
to eighteenpence, which had come into force in 1833,
as the reductions they were thus able to make in their
charges, without risk or expense, led to a great deal
more advertising and a corresponding increase of income.
A large proportion of that income, it is true, was at
once used by the more intelligent and enterprising pro-
prietors in improving their establishments, extending
their arrangements for procuring local, provincial, and
foreign news, and in other ways meeting the growing
demands of their readers for newspapers at least as
much better in every way than those issued twenty or
thirty years before as these earlier ones had been
superior to tlie newspapers of the previous century.
There was no lack of well-directed energy in this respect

1836. EFFECTS OF THE NEW STAMP ACT 113

on the part of ' The Times ' and of the other journals
which it had surpassed in wealth and influence, and
which were now compelled, unless they were wUling
to be altogether outstripped, to compete with it more
vigorously than ever ; and the public benefited con-
siderably. There was too much disposition among the
successful newspaper managers, however, to profit in-
ordinately by the fiscal reform, and to labour at uphold-
ing and extending their monopoly with a narrow-minded
zeal which did not comport in all instances with their
own interests or with those of the public. During the
nineteen years of a compulsory penny stamp, pre-
eminently successful managers lUce John Walter made
more money than they could have hoped for under the
old system, and newspaper properties on the whole were
much increased in value ; but there were many failures,
and people who could ill aiFord to pay for their news-
papers fivepence a day, or even sixpence a week, had some
reason for complaining that they were not quite honestly
catered for.

The complaints were freely uttered, and addressed
especially to the government which had refused to make
a clean sweep of the stamp duty, by the producers and
the readers of such cheap papers as ' The Poor Man's
Giiardian,' in which Hetherington had bravely fought
the battle for complete liberty of the press. ' The Poor
]\Ian's Guardian ' had been succeeded by ' The Twopenny
Dispatch ' before the change of 1836, and this and other
papers had flourished for a time ; but the greater
stringency with which the new law was enforced crip-
pled and soon crushed them, and it was a veiy real
hardship to the masses who had learnt to look for the
twopenny papers, and who felt there was no good reason
why they should not have penny papers, that they were
deprived of their weekly reading except when they

VOL. II. I

114 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. xm.

contrived to get it by help of law-breaking. The anger
thus provoked was shown in resentment of what were
considered other acts of tyranny besides the imposition
of the penny stamp, which, it was reckoned, generally
cost nearly twopence in the case of papers with small
circulation, seeing that they had to bear the expense of
gettiQg the paper stamped, and loss of the money laid
out on all copies stamped but not sold. ' Reader,' said
Feargus O'Connor, in the first number of ' The Northern
Star,' which was issued from Leeds on November 18,
1837, 'behold that little red spot in the corner of my
newspaper. That is the stamp ; the Whig beauty spot ;
your plague spot. Look at it : I am entitled to it upon
the performance of certain conditions. T was ready to
comply, and yet, will you believe that the little spot
you see has cost me nearly eighty pounds in money,
together with much anxiety, and nearly one thousand
miles of night and day travelling ? Of this they shall
hear more, but for the present suffice it to say there it
is ; it is my licence to teach.'

' The Northern Star,' soon transferred from Leeds
to London, was during more than ten years the chief
newspaper advocate of the Chartist movement, edited
for some time by Julian Harney, and contributed to by
Ernest Jones and other violent agitators, and it carried
on in rowdy style a quarrel with the government,
whether Whig or Tory, which would hardly have arisen
or would have meant very little, if the authorities
had not courted defiance. The ' teachings ' of Feargus
O'Connor and his associates and rivals may have been
offensive and pernicious ; but they were only dangerous,
if they were really that, in so far as they received
encouragement from the follies of mischievous rulers.
Chartism, Socialism, and the other heresies that the
comfortable and conventional classes resented and

1836-1840. KEBELLIOUS AND COARSE JOURNALISM 115

•desired to put down, were promoted, instead of being
restraiaed, by the penny newspaper stamp and the
wrath it stirred up.

The history of this rebellious journalism, fitful in
its progress, of erratic politics, and of no literary merit,
is interesting and instructive, but it does not call for
detailed notice here : nor is more than passing reference
necessary to the swarm of other serials issued after as well
as before the appointment of the penny stamp, in forms
designed either to evade the law or, without violating
it, to achieve the objects aimed at. A taste for periodical
reading had arisen and was growing rapidly, and while
this was partly met by increase in the numbers and im-
provement in the quality of regular newspapers and
dignified magazines, it also led to an ample supply of
other publications, cheaper and coarser, and therefore
more accessible and perhaps acceptable, to vast numbers
of readers. Some, like ' The Poor Man's Friend,' a sequel
to ' The Poor Man's Guardian,' and, like it, pubUshed by
Hethertngton, ' The London Dispatch ' and ' The London
Mercury ' and ' The Moral Reformer ' in which Joseph
Livesey preached temperance, were penny weeklies
with serious, if misguided, political intent, but not
newspapers within the scope of the Stamp Act ; others
also handled politics as well as social affairs with a
pretence of humour, like ' The Penny Age,' ' The Star of
Venus, or The Show- up Chronicle,' 'The Penny Satirist,'
and two twopenny but not more respectable miscellanies
of scandal, ' The Town ' and ' The Fly ' ; and others, still
purporting to expose political and social abuses, were
chiefly collections of fiction, like ' Cleave's Penny Gazette
of Varieties.' ^ These, and such as these, competed

' A scathing article on some of these and other weeklies, entitled
Salf-a-Croumsworth of Cheap Knowledge, which appeared anonymously
in Fraser's Magazine for March 1838, has been identified as Thackeray's

I 2

116 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. xtii.

with ' Chambers's Edinburgh Journal,' ' The Penny
Magazine,' 'Leigh Hunt's London Journal,' a short-
lived but admirable publication, and other magazines, as
well as with the regular newspapers, and, untouched by
either the old or the new Stamp Acts, were only in-
directly encouraged by the change in the law ; but they
were part of the development in periodical literature now
in progress, and some, being reprehensible in themselves,
were pioneers of much that was healthy.

The rise of comic journalism is noteworthy. Hu-
morous verse and prose had been combined, on occa-
sion, with the serious news or comments in most of
the daily and weekly papers from the commencement
of the nineteenth century, and in earlier days, as when
Charles Lamb included poems and jokes in his ' fashion-
able intelligence ' for ' The Morning Post,' and when
Thomas Moore contributed his squibs in rhyme to ' The
Morning Chronicle,' after the fashion set by Canning
and his friends in ' The Anti- Jacobin,' and competing
with Theodore Hook, Barham, and others in ' John
Bull ' ; but independent comic journalism was some-
what of a novelty in 1831, when, on December 10,
Gilbert Abbot a' Beckett and Henry May hew commenced
' Figaro in London.' As many as four other humorous

{Athenxum, Marcli 19, 1887). A kindlier critic, Mr. Thomas Frost,
says of Cleave's Gazette (in Forty Years' Recollectiuns, p. 83) : ' A roughly
executed political caricatuire on the first page, and some vigorous writing
on the rights and wrongs of the people, recommended the paper to the
working men of the metropolis and the large towns of the manufacturing
districts, and there was an ample provision of fiction and anecdote for
the mental regalement of their wives and the rising generation. Tlie
Penny Satirist differed from Cleave's paper only in containing a larger
quantity of political matter, and in reflecting, in that portion of its con-
tents, the views of the Anti-Oorn-Law League, rather than those of the
National Charter Association. It was said, indeed, that it was subsidised
by the League, the coarse woodcuts which embellished the front of the
paper, and which were graphic arguments for the repeal of the imposts
on food, being paid for by the funds of that body.'

1831-1841. THE RISE OF COMIC JOURNALISM 117

papers were started within the next six months :
' Punch in London,' under Douglas Jerrold's editor-
ship, on January 14, 1832 ; ' Punchinello ; or, Sharps,
Naturals, and Flats,' with illustrations by George
Cruikshank, on January 20 ; ' The DevU in London,'
afterwards called ' Asmodeus ; or the Devil in London,'
and finally ' Asmodeus in London,' on February 29,
and ' The Schoolmaster at Home,' on June 9 ; and these
were followed by ' Dibdin's Penny Trumpet ' on
October 20, and by the ' Whig Dresser ' on January 5,
ISSS.-"^ ' Figaro in London,' however, alone took the
public fancy. Giving iu four small quarto pages for
a penny, as it announced, ' good-humoured squibs on
passing events of primary popular mterest,' aloDg with
witty ' brevities ' and funny paragraphs, and with a
column or two of theatrical criticism as its most solid
item, it had at first only one caricature, repeated on
the front page of every number, though before long
other pictures — two or three each week — were intro-
duced. The jokes were generally feeble, and sometimes
very coarse ; but they were amusing, and the publica-
tion lasted till August 10, 1839, Henry Mayhew being
at that time the editor, and perhaps the only writer.

Its plan was revived, with great improvements, in
' Punch ; or the London Charivari,' the first number of
which appeared on July 17, 1811, under the editorship
of Mark Lemon, with Henry Mayhew as his assistant,
and Douglas Jerrold and other old venturers ia comic
joumahsm as contributors. Ebenezer Landells, William
Newman, and Archibald Henning supplied the illus-
trations, and from the commencement there was an
abundant supply of racy wit in the twelve pages,
for which, no stamp being required, threepence was

^ These six lasted severally only seventeen, ten, thirty-seven, six,
four, and twelve weeks.

118 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. xiiu

charged.^ ' Punch ' was an unprofitable speculation for
some time ; but it began to tbrive when it became the
property of Bradbury and Evans, under whom Mark
Lemon continued to edit it, helped by a staff of bril-
liant contributors which soon included Gilbert a'Beckett,
Thackeray, Stirling Coyne, Watts Phillips, WiUiam
Henry Wills, Thomas Hood, and Horace and Augustus
Mayhew, and with Leech and Tenniel among its illus-
trators. Its rise ia popularity dates from December 16,.
1843, when ' The Song of the Shirt' appeared in it and
trebled its sale. This poem had been forwarded to
Lemon with a letter from Hood, saying that it had
been rejected by three editors, and asking that, if not
now used, it might be thrown into the waste-paper-
basket, as the author was ' sick of the sight of it.'
Some of Lemon's colleagues objected to its publication
in ' Punch ' on the ground that there was no fun in its
humour, but Lemon liked it ; and this clever editor,
assisted by so many clever writers and artists, was soon
able to draw a salary of 1,500^. a year, instead of the
thirty shillings a week with which he started.^

Mark Lemon had a hand in the commencement of
another aiid a yet more successful enterprise. Herbert

^ Besides other illustrations, the first number had a large cartoon,
' Candidates under different Phases,' &c. &c. ; one of its jokes, some-
what ponderous, but indicative of its political intent, was ' A Synopsis of
Voting, arranged according to the Categories of Cant,' crowding a whole
page. Its main divisions were as follows : — ' I. He that hath not a vote
and voteth. II. He that hath a vote and voteth not. III. He that hath
a vote and voteth,' the last being thus subdivided : — (A) intentionally ;
(1) corruptly, that is, either (a) bribed directly with money, place, or
diink, or (b) bribed indirectly, or (c) intimidated, or (d) voluntarily cor-
rupt ; (2) conscientiously, in accordance either (a) with humbug — political,
moral, or domestic, or (6) with principle — hereditary, conventional, or
philosophical ; (B) accidentally, through either (a) blunders of himself,
or (6) blunders of others.

'^ The True Story of Ptmich was told at length, and for the most part
accurately, by Mr. Joseph Hatton in eleven numbers of London Society
in 1875.

1841-1842. 'PUNCH' AND 'THE ILLUSTRATED' 119

Ingram, at first a compositor, was a newsagent in Not-
tingham, where his experience of the great increase ia
sale consequent on the appearance, now and then, of
rough wood-cuts in ' The Morning Chronicle ' and other
journals, incliued him to believe that a regularly illus-
trated newspaper would prosper. He is said to have
been nearly twelve years cogitaticg the project and
endeavouring to raise the necessary capital, and in the
meanwhile the popularity acquired by several humbler
undertakings, both the early comic papers and such
cheap publications as the ' Police Gazettes ' that were
plentiful, favoured his view. At length, on May 14,
1842, in conjunction with Nathaniel Cooke, who had
married his sister, and William Little, whose sister he
had married, and with Lemon as his chief adviser, he
produced the first number of ' The Illustrated London
News,' which gave, in sixteen three-column folio pages,
along with the usual news, about twelve small pictures,
besides humorous sketches and drawings of costumes.
The illustrations, far in advance of anything that had
yet been attempted, though for the most part very
poor work in comparison with subsequent achieve-
ments, were the special attractions of Ingram's venture ;
but it aimed at much else. ' We shall be less deeply
political than earnestly domestic,' it was announced in
the second number. ' Our business wUl not be with
the strife of party, but with what attacks or ensures the
home life of the empire ; with the household gods of
the English people, and, above all, of the English poor ;
with the comforts, the enjoyments, the affections, and
the liberties, that form the link of that beautiful chain
which should be fashioned at one end of the cottage,
at the other of the palace, and be electric with the
happiness that is carried into both.' ' Three essential
elements of discussion with us,' it was added, ' will be

120 WITH A PENNY STAMP en. XTir.

the poor laws, the factory laws, and the working of
the mining system in those districts of our soil which
nature has caverned with her treasures, and cruelty dis-
figures with its crime.'

Under its first editor, known, because of his wealth
in baptismal names, as ' Alphabet ' Bailey, ' The Illus-
trated London News ' was somewhat pompously and
clumsily written. Among its contributors, however,
were Mark Lemon, Stirling Coyne, and Henry, Horace,
and Augustus Mayhew, who combined social teaching
with grotesqueness of phrase, while Howard Staunton
soon made it an authority on chess, and the antiquarian
and topographical concerns proper to a pictorial paper
were zealously looked after by John Timbs, its sub-
editor. It had, moreover, a competent staff of artists,
who made a name for themselves as well as for the
journal by their good work, in John Gilbert, William
Hervey, Kenny Meadows, Birket Foster, ' Alfred Crow-
quill,' John Leech, and others.^

The opposition that Ingram met with in one direc-
tion had memorable results. Prominent among the
followers of Hetherington and other producers of cheap
literature, before and after the reduction of the stamp
duty, was Edward Lloyd, born in 1815, who was a
bookseller, and a publisher as weU, and even an author,
before he was twenty years old. ' Lloyd's Stenogi'aphy,
or an easy and compendious System of Shorthand,' a
sixpenny pamphlet, appeared in 1833, and it was fol-
lowed by a succession of tales, issued in penny num-
bers, some of them being imitations of ' Pickwick,'
' Oliver Twist,' and other popular novels.^ Tales were

' Mason Jackson, The Pictorial Press; its Oi-igin and Progress, pp
284-296.

" On the first appearance of Lloyd's Pickwick, Dickens threatened to
obtain an injunction restraining its publication. He soon admitted,
however, that it was a good advertisement of his own work.

1833-1843. EDWAKD LLOYD AND HIS PAPERS 121

also given, along witli scraps of information, notices of
books and plays, and miscellaneous gossip, in ' The Penny
Sunday Times,' a large four-page sheet, adorned with
rough illustrations of exciting occurrences, which Lloyd
issued, and this publication, which was as much Hke a
newspaper as it ventured to be without coming under
the Stamp Act, was so successful that in 1842 two
other weeklies, ' Lloyd's Penny Atlas ' and ' Lloyd's
Penny Weekly Miscellany of Homance and General
Interest,' which did not attempt to be newspapers, were
started from the same establishment.^ More important
was ' Lloyd's Illustrated London Newspaper,' also com-
menced in 1842, with the object of competing with
' The Illustrated London News ' — for which sixpence
was charged — by a much cheaper publication, providing
a certain amount of news, but in such a form as, it was
hoped, would render a penny stamp unnecessary.

The first number of ' Lloyd's Illustrated,' giving eight
folio pages, with three columns in a page, and a few small
woodcuts, and sold for twopence, appeared on Novem-
ber 27 ; and the publication was continued for seven
weeks. Then, however, the authorities interfered, and
Lloyd was informed that he must either suppress his
paper, or issue it as a stamped newspaper, the special
item of important information which he was condemned
for publishing without a stamp being a report of the
escape of a Hon from its cage. The result of this arbi-

' ' The " march of intellect," as it was called,' says Mr. Thomas
JProst (Forty Tears' BecollecUons, p. 85), who did much of this work in
his youth, ' had not then advanced far enough to suggest the possibility,
since realised, of its being a remunerative undertaking to engage authors
of high literary repute to write for penny publications ; but, as in all
cases, the existence of a demand creates a supply, authors were soon
found who were very willing to write any number of novels and romances
for the honora/rium offered by Mr. Lloyd, that is, ten shillings per weekly
instalment of the story.' The Londcm Journal, very different from Leigh
Himi's London Jowrnal of 1834, was commenced soon after this date.

122 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. xvii.

trary proceeding was a prompt reshaping of the journal.
' Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper,' called JSfo. 8,
but the first of the fresh series, appeared on January 15,
1843, as an eight-page paper, with five columns on the
page, but without illustrations, for which twopence-
halfpenny was charged. On September 24 the price
was raised to threepence, but, at the same time, the size
was increased from eight to twelve pages. ' Lloyd's '
was now a cheaper paper than before, and much cheaper
than any stamped newspaper that had preceded it.

A rival soon entered the field. The first number of
' The News of the World,' giving in eight larger pages
about as much matter as ' Lloyd's ' contained, and also
sold for threepence, was published on October 1, 1843.
' Journalism for the rich man and journalism for the
poor,' it was said, not quite accurately or grammatically,
in the opening article of this new paper, ' have up to
this time been as broadly and distinctly marked as the
manners, the dress, and the habitations of the rich are
from the customs, the squalor, and the dens of the poor.
The paper for the wealthy classes is high-priced ; it
is paid for by them, and it helps to lull them m the
security of their prejudices. The paper for the poorer
classes is, on the other hand, low-priced, and it is paid
for by them ; it feels bound to pander to their passions.
Truth, when it offends a prejudice and shows the evil
of passion, is frequently excluded from both. The first
is often as remarkable for its talent, for its early intelli-
gence, as the other, we regret to say, is for the absence
of talent and the staleness of its news.' Promising
to emulate all the virtues and to avoid all the vices of
other papers, ' The News of the World ' hardly kept its
word. Its Radicalism was more violent than that of
' Lloyd's,' and it was more freely supplied with offensive
news ; but it pleased many readers, and in the course

1843-1850. 'LLOYD'S NEWSPAPER' AND ITS RIVALS 123

of twelve years it attained a circulation of nearly 110,000,
beiag some two or three thousand ahead of ' Lloyd's.'

More dignified, ia its earlier stage, than either of
those threepenny papers was another, ' The Weekly
Times,' which was started on January 24, 1847, and
the temper of which was fairly expressed in an article
ia the first number, temperately criticismg the queen's
speech with which parliament had just been opened,
and contrasting it with the recent American presidential
address. ' Last year,' it was said, ' Queen Victoria in-
timated briefly the freedom of trade in corn, and this
year the queen mdicates a commencement of free trade
ia land. For ourselves, we must confess that ia these
amiouncements we see a superiority, both ia matter aad
ia manner, to the message of President Polk, in which
he ponderously bullies Mexico, harangues on theories of
government like a professor, quibbles like a lawyer about
repudiation, and flatters his constituents as if he were
on the hustings. Of course the superstition of royalty
is gone by. Loyal spirits of old deemed the monarch
the representative of the Divinity. Nowadays kings
and presidents are more justly regarded as the repre-
sentatives of the nation and the people. If this notion
of them be more true, it is also, therefore, more august.
To our ancestors the notion of Jove, instead of sitting
on Olyrapus and decidiag the fate of nations with a nod,
becomiag a lecturer on mythological philosophy was
not more preposterous than the spectacle of a king
deUvering a farrago, on the theory of government,
of dialectical subtleties and rhetorical declamations.'
Somewhat smaller than ' Lloyd's,' ' The "Weekly Times '
mixed with its epitome of news a larger proportion of
original writing, claiming in its title to be ' a London
newspaper of history, politics, literature, science, and
art ' ; and, with the common pseudonym of Littlejohn, a

124 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. svir.

succession of able writers supplied a weekly article of
less extreme Radicalism than the Publicola article in
' The Weekly Dispatch.'

' Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper,' then sold for four-
pence, and of ruder politics than any of the threepenny
Sunday journals that preceded it, was commenced on
May 5, 1850, and five years later it had a circulation
of nearly 50,000, that of ' The Weekly Times ' being
at the same date about 75,000, while the circulation of
' The Weekly Dispatch ' was only 38,000. In 1843, when
' Lloyd's,' then the only cheap Sunday newspaper and but
three months old, issued 32,000 copies a week, at two-
pence halfpenny, ' The Weekly Dispatch' sold upwards of
61,000 at sixpence. Of The Illustrated London News,'
on the other hand, which in 1855 reached a circulation
of nearly 110,000, the circulation in 1843, when it was
only a year old, was 25,000. Among the other leading
weekly papers sold at sixpence, the average sale of ' The
Sunday Times ' — which had been started in the autumn
of 1822 by Daniel Whittle Harvey as a more Radical
journal than ' The Dispatch' had by that time come to be,
but which, in other hands, was, like ' BeU's Life,' more
of a sporting than a political paper — was 20,000 in 1843;
that of ' Bell's Weekly Messenger,' a steady-going Tory
organ, paying special regard to the interests of farmers,
was 16,000 ; that of ' The Weekly Chronicle,' an enter-
prising journal which had but short life, was less than
16,000 ; and ' The Examiner ' had only a weekly sale of
6,000, though this was nearly four times as great as the
weekly sale of ' The Spectator.'

Those figures help to show how great was the change
coincident with, and partly consequent upon, the
cheapening of newspapers by the reduction of the stamp.
' The Examiner,' which had never had a circulation at
all proportionate to its great influence, was still read by

1836-1850. OLD AND NEW EADICAL PAPERS 125

middle-class Radicals and others on account of Fon-
blanque's brilliant and pungent writing, but it had lost
credit through its too loyal support of the Whig policy
of Lord Melbourne and his successors, who were at
variance among themselves ; and ' The Spectator,' always
more pedagogic, and only professing to address itself
to a select audience, was now much occupied in riding
unpopular hobbies, of which the advocacy of Gibbon
Wakefield's colonisation schemes, deplorably illustrated
in the Canterbury settlement in New Zealand, was per-
haps the principal. Neither of these papers satisfied
the great body of Radicals, for whom stronger fare was
offered by the sixpenny ' Weekly Dispatch ' and the three-
penny ' Lloyd's,' while readers who cared most for amuse-
ment were well satisfied with ' The Illustrated,' in which,
besides pictures and light essays, special attention was
paid to many social abuses. ' The Dispatch,' to the
assistance of which William Johnson Fox had by this
time brought his vigorous pen, writing as Publicola,
was, however, until the cheaper papers had outstripped
it, the great and acknowledged exponent of social abuses
and champion of political reforms among Radicals who,
insisting upon sweeping changes and agreeing in some
respects with the extreme party, decliaed to call them-
selves Chartists.

The Chartist movement, never so strong as it was
supposed to be, had violent support from many of the
unstamped publications of the day, and was taken at its
worth in the more intelligent of the regular weekly
journals ; but by many others it was almost ignored,
and such mention as was made of it by the daily papers
was generally in the way of excessive denunciation
prompted by quite unnecessary alarm. On all the
grievances that gave unhealthy life to Chartism, the
defects of poor law administration, the miseries of

126 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. xyii.

factory life, the capitalist tyranny against wHch. trades
unionism revolted, the despotism of _ the Established
Church, the perversion of the inadequate Reform Act of
1832, and much else, and above all on the widespread
and steadily increasing disasters consequent on the corn
laws, the Radical weeklies commented boldly and per-
sistently, and none with more energy or better effect on
public opinion than ' The Weekly Dispatch.'

One important branch of journalism was almost
begun in these years. There had been newspapers
especially interested in religious questions long before
' The World ' was started in 1826 as the organ of the
congregational dissenters, and the work undertaken by
' The World ' was less temperately carried on for some
time by 'The Patriot' ; while ' The Record,' established
in 1828, was a formidable exponent of the views of the
' evangelical ' section of the Church of England. Among
other papers of this class, representing diverse views,
moreover, ' The Watchman,' started in 1835 as the re-
presentative of the Yv'^esleyan body, held a respectable
place. Soon after the reduction of the newspaper stamp
to a penny, however, and as one of the popular move-
ments that accompanied it, a new era began in religious
periodical literature, which was now and henceforth
much more polemic in its style and purport.

The first number of ' The Tablet ' was published on
May 16, 1840, under the editorship of Frederick Lucas,
a talented and amiable young barrister who had left
the Society of Friends to become a devout and broad-
mmded Roman Catholic. Lucas's ' brief confession of
political faith,' uttered in that first number, was an
interesting document, illustrative of more than his own
fine temper of heart and mind, and of more than the posi-
tion then taken up by the most enhghtened portion of
the body to which he had attached himself, and which he

1836-1850. OLD AND NEW RELIGIOUS PAPERS 127

served as a lay apostle. ' Legislative reforms and enac1>
ments ia any higher sphere than that of poHce,' he
declared, ' are very necessary to remove obstructions,
and very powerless to effect much positive good.' ' His
comparatively low estimate of the good that can flow
from them,' he promised, ' will not dispose him to be
seized with vehement, midiscrimiaating, and unfounded
admiration of the measures of his political friends, nor
vehement, undiscriminating, and unfounded hostility
to those of political opponents.' ' We believe,' he
added, ' there is very little difference between Lord
John Russell and Sir Eobert Peel in the desire to main-
tain the present, or very nearly the present, mixture of
aristocracy and democracy ; the present mode of exer-
cising the prerogative of the crown, the present mode
of administering and amending the laws ; and, in short,
the present distribution of political, legislative, and
administrative power. Both of them are desirous to
maintain the Anglican establishment in a certain
degree of pre-eminence over the Catholic Church and the
sects which the estabHshment has brought forth. On
many points we should agree with both ; but we
should give our support to the party to whose exertions
the triumph of the principles of toleration and justice is
owing, rather than to the party on whose acceptance
they have been forced.'

Therefore Lucas preferred the party of Lord John
Russell to the party of Sir Robert Peel. Many mem-
bers of the latter party, he said, could not be con-
sidered sane. ' Their opinions are a strange medley of
truth and falsehood, of sense and nonsense, of maxims
borrowed with little judgment from other times and
other systems than their own, and therefore harmonis-
ing neither with those times nor with their own sys-
tems. Fanatical without rehgion, unbending in their

128 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. xtii.

purposes but unscrupulous in their means, and capable
of "waiving their principles for a time in order to secure
their ultimate more sure triumph ; ruthless, meddling,
rash, heedless, and impatient ; they have in England made
hateful the designation of ultra-Tory, and in Ireland
have consigned to eternal infamy the name of Orange-
man.' ' On the subject of Ireland,' he went on to say,
' it is difficult to speak with moderation. We are no
repealers ; but we look upon the cry for repeal to be
the most natural for the inhabitants of a country which
has been governed with such fatal disregard of all the
plamest rules of justice and prudence.' ' Absenteeism
and the strengthening of the hands of the Orangemen
of the north by aid of their brother bigots in England,
he averred, had brought about a grievous state of
things, which afforded much excuse for the repeal cry ;
' but we think that no impartial person who considers
the change which late years have introduced into the
character of our Irish legislation, the immense stride
that has been made from the more than Orange bar-
barities— if that be conceivable — of the last century, to
the mild and moderate injustice of the present day, can
hesitate in believing that the troubled waters will work
themselves pure, that patience (Heaven knows the
Irish have been patient hitherto), moderation, and firm-
ness will suffice for the accomplishment of what remains,
without giving up the country to the horrors of civil
war — the inevitable result of any serious attempt to
obtani the repeal of the Union.'

In that spirit, speaking gently when he thought
gentleness was honest, and speaking fiercely when he
thought fierceness was right, and aided by a number
of English and Irish Catholics of dispositions like his
own, Lucas instructed his fellow-religionists and offered
battle to his foes. He had to educate the Catholicism

1840-1843. 'THE TABLET ' AND ' THE NONCONFOBMIST ' 129

of Hs day, and to fight, not merely for removal of the
small persecutions it was exposed to in England, but
for redress of the grievous social and political wrongs
endured by its followers ui Ireland. He did both with
a strange blendiug of meekness and firmness, of grace
and fiery zeal ; and he achieved much, and with none
the less effect because some of his associates objected so
strongly to his tactics that, leavmg them to carry on
' The Tablet,' he started ' The True Tablet ' on February
26, 1842, and contuiued the rivalry till the opposition
collapsed, and ' The Tablet,' reverting to him, was
brought out in an enlarged form on January 1, 1843.-^

In curious contrast to ' The Tablet,' yet resembhng it
in some respects, was ' The Nonconformist,' commenced
on AprU 14, 1841, with Edward Miall for editor, as an
iadignant protest both against the hardships to which
dissenters were exposed as regards the payment of
church rates and other impositions, and agamst the
cowardice of many of the victims themselves. ' Dis-
senters as a body,' MiaU wrote in his first number,
' have uniformly acted as though they were ashamed of
their great leading principle, and secretly distrustful
of its efficacy ; and they have wasted their efforts in a
series of petty skirmishes, which have served only to
win for them more comfortable quarters, without bring-
ing them a whit nearer to the attainment of their
ultimate object. Before dissenters can hope to make
way, they must make the basis of their operations
national rather than sectarian, must aim not so much
to right themselves as to right Christianity.' * The
primary object of " The Nonconformist," ' he explained,
' is to show that a national establishment of religion is
vicious in its constitntion, philosophically, politically,
and religiously ; to bring under public notice the

' Edward Lucas, Life of Frederick Lucas, vol. i. pp. 74-80.
VOL. II. K

V60 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. xvxr.

innumerable evils of wLicli it is the parent ; to arouse
men, and more especially those who, avowedly and on
religious grounds, repudiate it, from the fatal apathy
with which they regard its continuance and extension ;
to ply them with every motive which ought to prevail
upon them to come forward and combine and act for an
equitable and peaceful severance of church and state.
This is the great design of the projectors of this paper.
They have no other object, pecuniary or party, to serve.'
' As regards general politics,' he added, ' we ask nothing
more from the state than protection, extending to the life
and liberty, the peace and prosperity of the governed ;
and to secure this to all classes of subjects we advocate
a fair and full representation to all.'

But that demand involved much. Objecting as
strongly as did Lucas to Tory domination, Miall had
no liking for the Whig administration that was breaking
up when ' The N onconformist ' appeared. ' Will our
ministers and representatives,' he exclaimed, 'never see
tiU too late that a sUent people is not necessarily a con-
senting people or an indiffierent people, that often when
most quiet they only bide their time ? An increasing
expenditure and a declining revenue, hunger for
bread among the masses, Ireland on the verge of
rebellion, and foreign affairs in derangement, popular
discontent, commercial embarrassment, intestme party
divisions, anti-poor-law pledges that were never meant
to be redeemed, furious Protestantism that cannot be
soothed mto subordination, a frowning court, a discon-
tented people ! The question is no longer one of party.
With more than half our population it is one of life or
death.'

' The Nonconformist ' can hardly be ranked among
religious papers. It gave more space than its contem-
poraries to matters specially interesting to members of

1838-1846. OTHER NEW WEEKLY PAPERS. 131

the dissenting body to wMch Miall belonged ; but it
was always and pre-eminently a political journal,
making its chief business the discussion of ecclesiastical
questions, of faults ia the State Church machinery, and
■of hardships endured by those who held aloof from it,
and dealing freely with all other concerns of the hour,
domestic and foreign, from its editor's Radical stand-
point ; and it did good service in its own way. To it,
and to Miall's work upon it during nearly forty years,
the nonconformists and the public at large owe much.

A year after ' The Nonconformist,' on July 9, 1842,
' The Inquirer ' was started as the organ of the Unitarian
body, and in January 1843 ' The English Churchman '
undertook to support the cause of the High Church
party, in opposition to the ' evangelicalism ' of ' The
Record.' ' The Guardian,' a much more enterprising
and comprehensive newspaper for Church of England
readers, and with William Ewart Grladstone as one of its
founders, was not commenced tUl 1846.

Other papers whose appearance must be noted as part
of the great extension of journalism in these years were
' The Era,' which was commenced in 1838 as a cham-
pion of pubhcans' interests, but which soon devoted
itself more particularly to theatrical matters ; ' The
Britannia,' a Conservative paper, which, however, had
Thackeray for one of its contributors, dating from 1839 ;
' The Builder,' dating from 1842 ; ' The Farmer,'
•dating from 1843 ; and ' The Economist,' in which,
also in 1843, James WUson began to propound safe
views on financial questions and their social and political
bearings. The services rendered by ' The Economist '
in its earlier years in calling for a repeal of the corn
laws, and in advocating free trade ia general, secured for
it an influence of which good use was made in opposing
the railway mania that soon followed.

X 2

132 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. xth.

The effects of railway enterprise upon newspaper
history are remarkable, the accumulation of journals-
devoted to its real or spurious interests during the craze
that reached its height in 1846 being but a passing
phase. ' Herapath's Railway Journal,' at first only a
monthly magazine, was started in 1835, when railways
were in their infancy, and ' The Eailway Times ' fol-
lowed in 1837. For some while these two sufiiced as
channels of information to investors and others con-
cerned in the progress of the new method of travelling
which was inaugurated in 1825. But when public
apathy and alarm were succeeded by excessive enthu-
siasm and reckless speculation, more than two dozen
railway journals contrived to reap a short harvest by the
change.

In 1845 there were two short-lived daily papers,.
' The Iron Times,' which was published every morning,
and '' The Railway Director,' published every afternoon ;
one paper, ' The Steam Times,' appearing on Mondays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays ; seven which were issued
twice a week, and nineteen others which were issued
once a, week. Of these only ' The Railway Record,'
commenced in 1844, and the two of older date survived
the crash of 1846 ; but till then most of them, and
nearly all the other papers as well, profited greatly,
not only by the general demand for news, but yet
more by the profusion of advertisements incident to
the mania. The parliamentary rule requiring that
annoxincements of all new schemes for which the sanc-
tion of the House of Commons was to be asked during
the forthcoming session should be made before Decem-
ber 1, produced such a rush of advertisements for ' The
London Gazette,' that during November 1845 it was
found necessary to publish a monstrous edition of that
ofiicial sheet every day, and on one memorable day, the

1836-1860. RAILWAYS AND NEWSPAPERS 133

15th of the month, its printed matter extended to 583
pages/

The reckless speculation in railways thus curiously
illustrated was soon brought to a check, but legitimate
railway enterprise continued and increased, to the im-
mense advantage of the commimity, and of journalism,
as one of the concomitants of its progress. The much
greater rapidity and certainty with which news could
be conveyed to the various printing presses in London
and the provinces, and also with which newspapers
could be sent to distant places, enabled proprietors and
all the writers and others employed by them to render
to the public far more efficient service than had before
been possible ; and these improvements were as profit-
able to the producers as to those for whom they catered.
Newspapers had their full share in the general commer-
cial and industrial advance for which the middle third
of the nineteenth century was in every way remarkable,
and to which the partial adoption of free trade prin-
ciples, especially signalised by the abolition of the corn
duties, and the mechanical developments attendant on
the establishment of railways, alike conduced. By the
growth of trade and manufactures, and the vastly in-
creased prosperity of provincial towns and local centres,
benefiting nearly all classes of society, though in un-
equal proportions, new facilities and new fields for
journalistic work were obtained.

The provincial papers, even in such busy centres as
Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, were still only
published once a week, but they were now much larger,
much better supphed with both local and general informa-
tion, and much better written, than formerly. Nearly
all the abler and more enterprising country journahsts
became local reporters and correspondents for the London
1 Andrews, vol. ii. pp. 267-269.

134 WITH A PEISTNY STAMP ch. xvir.

papers, and this arrangement, rendered much easier by
the railway system, worked well for all parties. Of
meetings and important occurrences in remote districts
prompt intelligence was forwarded by train to London at
far less expense than in the days when men like Dickens
had to be sent down to describe them, posting to and
fro on horseback or in carriages ; and the country agents
who in this way earned money and gained experience
used their knowledge and position in improvmg the pro-
vincial journals with which they were connected. In the
smaller towns uncultured printers or booksellers often
continued to do all the editing and writing deemed neces-
sary for the clumsy and sparsely circulated news-sheets
issued by them. Even among these, however, a healthy
spirit of competition began to show itself, and the worthy
rivalry among the more important and influential country
papers rapidly and steadily enhanced the influence and
importance of all. From the earliest times clever
journalists, schooled in the proAonces, had occasionally
migrated to London, there to acquire more dignity and
authority than had been possible to them at home, and
there had been a similar migration of unlucky or eccen-
tric journalists from London to the country towns ; but
these movements became much more numerous under
the change brought about by the reduction of the stamp
duty in 1836, and as part of the revolution that was
then inaugurated.

An early incident of that revolution was the formal
establishment in May 1837 of the Provincial News-
paper Society, projected a year before, with John
Matthew Gutch, of ' Felix Farley's Bristol Journal,''
Edward Baines, of ' The Leeds Mercury,' and John
Blackwell, of ' The Newcastle Courant,' among its
founders. ' The objects of this society,' it was an-
nounced, ' are to promote the general interests of the

1836-1860. THE GKOWTH OF COUNTEY NEWSPAPERS 135

provincial press, and to maintain tlie respectability of a
body whicli may, without vanity, be said to occupy a
very important place in the community. It disclaims
all political or exclusive views, the best proof of which is
to be found in the names of its members and the widely
differing age, standing, and political character of their
several publications. It disclaims, also, all desire of
dictating to the proprietors of the provmcial journals in
any matter relating to the management of their respec-
tive concerns, but is founded on the belief that the inter-
change of information or opinions on subjects of general
interest may be useful to the proprietors at large.' ^ The
society did varied and always useful work in protecting
and promoting the interests and advancmg the welfare
of country journalism, and in agitating for the removal
of all remaining fiscal restraints on the liberty of the
press, and for further reform in the libel laws and other
hindrances to newspaper progress ; and it has been of
immense service to the journalism of London as well
as of the provmces. When it started there were only
about two hundred country newspapers, with an aggre-
gate circulation of barely more than 400,000 a week.
Twenty years later both the number and the circula-
tion were at least thrice as great, though even then
hardly any attempt had been made to publish a daily
paper out of London,

The railways and other improved means of commu-
nication were at first especially beneficial to the London
daily papers, as they were thus enabled to obtain in-
formation much more cheaply and expeditiously, and

^ Whorlow, The Provincial Newspaper Society, 1836-1886 ; a Jubilee
Betrospect, p. 29. Much interesting information about the progress of
country journalism, which is of necessity barely touched upon in this
work, is given in Mr. Whorlow's memoir. See also Then and Now, or
Fifty Years of Newspaper Work, by Mr. WiUiam Hunt, and Mr. Thomas
Frost's Beminiscences of a Country Journalist.

136 WITH A PENNY STAMP en. xvii.

■witli mucli more variety and accuracy, than in former
times. The old and very costly system of special
expresses was gradually superseded as easier lines of
conveyance were opened up, and, in anticipation of
similar advantages in obtaining news from abroad, and
of the yet greater advantages to result from the intro-
duction of the electric telegraph, the enterprise hitherto
mainly limited to England and the countries nearest to
it was employed further afield.

Memorable illustration of this occurred in 1845.
Soon after the establishment of peace between France
and England in 1815, the leading London papers began
to have regular correspondents in the foreign centres of
information, and especially in Paris, from whom they
received by each day's post, such particular news as
could be obtained and was likely to interest their readers
in addition to any extracts made from the continental
journals ; and as the arrangements of the General Post
Office, before Rowland Hill's day, were far from trust-
worthy, an independent service of couriers on both sides
of the channel, and of swift cutters to cross it, was
organised by John Walter of ' The Times,' by means of
which important news often reached Printing House
Square some hours before it was known even in
Downing Street. Walter's enterprise, so increasing the
popularity of ' The Times ' that the heavy expense was
more than met by the augmented circulation, was before
long emulated by the other newspaper proprietors, and
first by Edward Bald win of ' The Morning Herald,' who
estabhshed a rival service of expresses which was con-
tinued for a long while after ' The Times,' to avoid
further competition and lessen the outlay, had admitted
' The Morning Chronicle ' and ' The Morning Post ' to
participation in the elaborate machinery of news-convey-
ance it had constructed. Thus matters continued and

1845. 'THE TIMES' AND FOKEIGN EXPRESSES 137

progressed after 1827, when Lieutenant Waghorn's
opening of the overland route to India rendered possible
and necessary an extension of the machinery in order
to procure prompt intelligence from the far east.
During many years the courier of ' The Times,' and of
the other papers that to this extent it recognised as
allies, awaited the arrival of each maU-boat from Suez
at Marseilles, and as soon as he had received his parcel
of letters and papers, hurried across France to send it
on without delay from Paris to London. ' The Times,'
however, made itself obnoxious to Louis Pliilippe's
government by some of its strictures on French policy
in 1845, and the result was a series of petty persecutions
and meddlings eminently characteristic of Guizot's
notion of statesmanship. ' The Times ' courier was
detained in Paris on account of the alleged informality
of his passport and other pretexts, and thus his des-
patches were prevented from reaching London untQ
after the more regular mail bags had been delivered.
Walter accordingly made fresh arrangements.

When the Indian packet vessel called at Suez on
October 19, it was met by a messenger who claimed
the consignment to ' The Times ' office, rode with it on
a swift dromedary to Alexandria, where Waghorn, not
loth to join in this extension of his smart policy, was
waiting in an Austrian steamer to convey the parcel
to a port near Trieste. Thence it was carried with all
speed and by the shortest route to Ostend, and from
Ostend by special steamer to Dover, and by special
train to London. It reached ' The Times ' office early
enough for the principal portion of its contents to be
printed in 'The Times' of October 31, and sent off to
Paris, where the news was read, to the amazement and
•chagrin of Gruizot and his colleagues, before the rest of the
Indian maU had passed through the city. In the hope

138 WITH A PENNY STAMP ch. xtii.

of defeating ' The Times,' tlie French, government placed
special trams and steamers at the disposal of ' The
Morning Herald ' for conveyance of its November
parcal from India, and it was so far successful that on
this occasion the ' Herald ' was two days ahead of ' The
Times ' in the publication of the next batch of eastern
news. Walter was not to be baffled, however, and the
Austrian government came to his help in what was now
a most exciting international contest. He was alsa
favoured by a succession of violent storms in the
Mediterranean which hindered the Marseilles boat while
the Trieste boat was quietly steaming up the Adriatic,
and ' The Times ' forestalled ' The Morning Herald ' by
nearly a fortnight with its December budget. The
struggle was maintained for some time longer, and not
abandoned until, the Marseilles route being found to be
cheaper and, as a rule, safer and quicker than the.
Trieste route, and the French government having seen
the folly of meddling with the arrangements of a man.
like Walter, all obstacles were removed and the old plan,
was reverted to with such improvements as this brisk
struggle had suggested.^

That episode gives striking evidence of the vigour
with which newspaper enterprise was now carried
on. It had fresh development by help of other-
mechanical and scientific contrivances, among them
being the introduction of the electric telegraph, of which
early, if not the earliest, newspaper use was made hy
' The Morning Chronicle ' in May 1845, when it received
a message from Portsmouth along the wires then
recently laid by the London and South- Western Rail-
way Company.''' In November 1847 the queen's speech
at the opening of parliament was for the first time

' Knight Hunt, vol. ii. pp. 205-208 ; Andrews, vol. ii. pp. 261-263.
' William Hunt, Then and Now, p. 110.

1845-1850. NEWSPAPERS AND TELEGRAPHS 13&

telegraphed to various parts of the country ; and ad-
vantage was promptly taken of the first cable laid
between France and England, in August 1850. For a
long time, however, this wonderful agency for obtaining
and circulating news was too costly and too partial in
its range to be generally employed.

140

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RISE OF ' THE DAILT NEWS.'
1844—1854.

Charles Dickens, who liad done mucli work for ' The
Morning Chronicle ' as a descriptive reporter during the
later years of John Black's editorship, had begun to find
sufficient and more agreeable occupation as a successful
novelist before Black was superseded by Andrew Doyle.
In March 1844, however, he contributed to ' The
Chronicle ' a few sketchy articles which caused some
stir, and for which the new editor rather grudgingly
paid the ten guineas apiece that he asked, and, as he
was then planning a visit to Italy, he oifered to send
thence, as he said, ' a letter a week under any signature
I chose, with such scraps of descriptions and impressions
as suggested themselves to my mind.' To Dickens's
great annoyance, this oifer was declined on the score of
expense, and the result was a conference between him,
his friend and literary adviser, John Forster, and his
pubUshers, Bradbury and Evans, at which the idea of
starting a new journal in opposition to ' The Chronicle '
was first broached. The project, in abeyance while he
was abroad and for some time afterwards, was revived
in the autumn of 1845, and, contrary to the advice of
Forster, who knew better than Dickens his friend's un-
fitness for the plodding duties of a newspaper editor,
it took shape in ' The Daily News.' -^

' Forster, Life of Cha/rles Dichens, vol. ii. pp. 81, 82, 189, 191.

1844-1846. CHARLES DICKENS AS- AN EDITOR lil

The first number appeared on Wednesday, January
21, 1846, that date being fixed upon in order that the
start might immediately precede the opening of the
parliamentary session in "which it was expected that Sir
Robert Peel would announce the proposed abolition of
the corn laws. ' The principles advocated by " The
Daily News," ' Dickens wrote in the introductory article,
'will be principles of progress and improvement, of
education, civil and religious liberty, and equal legis-
lation— principles such as its conductors believe the
advancing spirit of the time requires, the condition of
the country demands, and justice, reason, and experience
legitimately sanction. Very much is to be done, and
must be done, towards the bodily comfort, mental ele-
vation, and general contentment of the English people.
But their social improvement is so inseparable from the
weU-doing of arts and commerce, the growth of public
works, the free investment of capital in all those nu-
merous helps to civilisation and improvement to which
the ingenuity of the age gives birth, that we hold it tO'
be impossible rationally to consider the true interests
of the people as a class question, or to separate them
from the interests of the merchant and manufacturer.
Therefore it wUl be no part of our function to widen
any breach that may unhappily subsist or may arise
between employer and employed ; but it will rather be
our efibrt to show their true relations, their mutual
dependence, and their mutual power of adding to the
sum of general happiness and prosperity. That this
great end can never be advanced without the carrying
of a calm and moderate tone into the discussion of all
questions bearing upon it is sufficiently apparent. In
such a tone we shall hope to treat them.'

Those sentences — pledging ' The Daily News ' to
more advanced Liberalism than had hitherto appeared

142 THE RISE OF ' THE DAILY NEWS ' ch. xtiii.

in any daily paper, except now and then in ' The
Morning Chronicle ' and in the shortlived but valiant
' Constitutional,' which Dickens seems, consciously or
unconsciously, to have taken as his model in some
respects, and honestly claiming to hold neutral ground
between wealthy arrogance and plebeian discontent,
both of which had spokesmen enough in the press —
were dignified and explicit, as also were the others that
called special attention to ' one feature in the course we
have marked out for ourselves.' ' We seek as far as in
us lies,' said Dickens, ' to elevate the character of the
public press in England. We believe it would attain
a much higher position, and that those who wield its
powers would be infinitely more respected as a class,
and an important one, if it were purged of a disposition
to sordid attacks upon itself, which only prevails in
England and America. We discern nothing in the
editorial plural that justifies a gentleman or body of
gentlemen in discarding a gentleman's forbearance and
responsibility, and venting ungenerous spleen against a
rival by a perversion of a great power — a power, how-
ever, which is only great so long as it is good and
honest. The stamp on newspapers is not like the stamp
on universal medicine bottles, which licenses anything,
however false and monstrous ; and we are sure this
misuse of it, in any notorious case, not only offends and
repels right-minded men in that particular instance,
but naturall)?^, though unjustly, involves the whole press
as a pursuit or profession in the feeling so awakened,
and places the characters of all who are associated with
it at a great disadvantage. Entering on this adventure
of a new daily journal in a spirit of honourable com-
petition and hope of public usefulness, we seek in our
new station at once to preserve our own self-respect and
to be respected, for ourselves and for it, by oiir readers.'

1846. ITS BOLD COMMENCEMENT 143

Among the chief proprietors of ' The Daily News '
at its commencement were Bradbury and Evans, Sir
William Jackson, Sir Joshua Walmsley, and Sir Joseph
Paxton, the capital raised or promised being 100,OOOZ.
Dickens's salary as editor was fixed at 2,000^., and there
was corresponding liberality iii the scale of payments to
be made to the large staff of leader writers, literary and
musical critics, reporters, and others that were engaged,
several of them being induced by friendship for Dickens
or by offers of higher salaries to transfer their services
from ' The Morning Chronicle.' Forster, who was now
writing much for ' The Examiner ' under Fonblanque,
was one of the principal leader writers, and Ejtc Evans
Crowe, long connected with ' The Chronicle,' was
another. William Henry Wills and Frederick Elnight
Hunt were sub-editors. WiEiam Weir had charge of
the department for collecting information and offering
comments on the railway enterprises that were then
unhealthily active. There was a foreign assistant
editor who looked after the correspondence from Paris
and other places abroad. Dickens's father was respon-
sible for the parliamentary reporting, Laman Blanchard,
Blanchard Jerrold, Joseph Archer Crowe, and more
than a dozen others being subordinate to him. All
the arrangements for cavTymg on the paper were
made with a lavish outlay of money, almost the only
economy attempted being in a halving of the cost of
foreign expenses by entering into partnership for this
purpose with Edward Baldwin, who had purchased
' The Morning Herald ' some two years before, his
son, Charles Baldwin, being already proprietor of ' The
Standard.' The new owner of ' The Herald ' had done
much to improve it, especially as regards the collection
of foreign news and advocacy of Lord Pahnerston's
views on continental affairs, and in the hope of crushing

144 THE EISE OF ' THE DAILY NEWS ' ch. xviii.

him, the managers of ' The Times ' had excluded him
from participation in the service of special messengers
which the proprietors of ' The Chronicle ' and ' The
Post' were allowed to share with them iii order to
forestall the General Post Office in the bringing of
letters from abroad. The expenses of such a service
were not less than 10,000Z. a year, and Edward Baldwin
was as glad as were the proprietors of ' The Daily
News,' that this heavy outlay should be divided between
them.

The first number of ' The Daily News ' was for those
days a remarkable exploit in journalism. Dickens's
opening article was followed by three others, all dealing
with the supremely important question of com law
reform in various aspects ; and more than a page was
occupied with a full report of a meeting on the subject
held on the previous evening at Ipswich and of a great
speech there delivered by Richard Cobden. Nearly the
whole of another page was devoted to a long review of
railway affairs and to reports of proceedings connected
therewith in various parts of the country. Two columns
were filled with a gossiping and critical article on the
music of the day, written by Dickens's father-in-law,
George Hogarth, who had charge of this portion of the
paper. A spirited poem, ' The Wants of the People,'
appeared as the first of a series of twelve ' Voices from
the Crowd ' which Charles Mackay had been commis-
sioned to write. And, for the satisfaction of Dickens's
many admirers, the number contained the first of a
series of ' Travelling Letters, written on the Road '
describing some of his experiences when abroad in
1844, which were afterwards reprinted as ' Pictures
from Italy.'

The next few numbers were hardly less attractive.
The same writers and others crowded with varied and

1846. UNDER DICKENS'S EDITING 145

interesting matter all the columns not required for
news of the day. The war against protection was waged
with unparalleled vigour, the seventh number being
accompanied by a four-page supplement giving ' some
account of the corn laws and their operations, designed
to elucidate the approaching debates,' and the tenth
containing a long letter from Cobden 'to the tenant
farmers of England.' Among other letters of rare
interest was one in which Walter Savage Landor de-
nounced the system of slavery in the United States,
and, besides continuing his ' Travelling Letters,' Dickens
commenced another series, ' Letters on Social Questions ' ;
the first, on ' Crime and Education,' being pubhshed on
the thirteenth day.

But Dickens only edited seventeen numbers of ' The
Daily News.' On February 9 he wrote to Forster,
saying that, ' tired to death and quite worn out,' ^ he
had thrown up the work ; and, apparently without com-
punction, he left the paper to fare as best it could
without him, except that he consented to the publica-
tion at intervals during the next three months both of
his letters on Italian travel and of a few others on
English social questions. Thereupon Forster, not very
cheerfully, but in order to relieve his friend from the
irksome and unsuitable responsibility he had taken on
himself, became acting editor, and he retained the office
till nearly the end of the year. ' God knows there has
been small comfort for either of us in " The Daily
News " nine months,' Dickens wrote to him on Octo-
ber 28. 'Make a vow (as I have done) never to go
down that court with the newsshop at the corner any
more, and let us swear by Jack Straw as in the ancient
times. I am beginning to get over my sorrow for your
nights up aloft in Whitefriars, and to feel nothing but

1 Forster, Life of Gharks Dickens, vol. ii. p. 92.
VOL. II. L

146 THE RISE OF ' THE DAILT NEWS ' ch. xviir.

happiness in the contemplation of your enfranchise-
ment.' ^

Dickens was through life as erratic and arbitrary as
any man of greater genius could be, not more generous
and self-sacrificing when the humour took him than he
was reckless of his obhgations to others and of his own
best interests when his whim was perverse. Those
who thoughtlessly acted on his suggestion that an ex-
pensive newspaper should be started for him to edit,
and who entrusted him with duties that he was quite
unfit to perform, however, must share the blame for
the fiasco that nearly caused ' The Daily News ' to be
wrecked before it was three weeks old. It is clear,
moreover, though nothing to this efi'ect has been re-
corded, that from the first there were serious diflPerences
between Dickens and his editorial stafi' and at least
some of the proprietors. All probably were at one
regarding the free-trade policy that had especially to be
insisted upon when the paper was started, and there
could be no doubt in the minds of any as to the pro-
priety of following Cobden's lead in this matter. But
many free-traders were at variance with Cobden on
other problems that had to be dealt with from time to
time in the columns of a newspaper, and England's
foreign and colonial complications, and conflicting
proposals for coping with them, caused wide divergence
in the ranks even of the more advanced Liberals.
There would have been ample room for quarrelling had
' The Daily News ' been at its commencement a pros-
perous undertaking. As it was then far from prosperous,
constant friction was inevitable, and, Dickens not being
a man who would consent to any economies he dis-
approved of, we may assume that this, as well as the
restless disposition that made steady attendance to the

' Forster, Life of Gharles Dickens, vol. ii. pp. 275 276

1846. DICKENS AND DILKB 147

routine of a newspaper office uncongenial to him,
led to Ms sudden abandonment of the task he had
undertaken.

' The Daily News ' was saved from ruin by the
appointment of Charles Wentworth Dilke as its manager
when it had been in existence three months. Dilke
had had experience in retrieving the fortunes of an
unlucky paper. In 1830 he became part proprietor
and editor of ' The Athenseum,' started two years
before by James Silk Buckingham, and he lost no time
in adoptiug on that paper a bold policy which, after
patient eflfort, made it not only an influential literary
organ, but also a valuable property. In 1831 he
lowered its price from eightpence to fourpence. ' Mercy
on us ! ' wrote John Hamilton Reynolds, who then had
a small interest in it, ' after the cost of writers, printers,
duty, and paper, what in the name of the practical part
■of a farthing remains to report upon as profit ? ' The
reduction in price, however, had such satisfactory re-
sults that in 1835 Dilke added eight pages to the
sixteen to which ' The Athenseum ' had previously been
limited. ' So you enlarge " The Athenaeum," ' Allan
Cunningham then wrote. ' You already give too much
for the money.' This change also proved satisfactory.
In 1840, by which time Dilke had come to be sole
owner, the paper was reported to be ' a success, but not
yet a financial success if past losses were added to the
wrong side of the account ; it was paying well, but had
not repaid the money which had been sunk on it at
£rst.' The balance was soon adjusted, and in AprU
1846 Dilke, assigning the editorship of ' The Athenaeum '
to other hands, undertook to carry out a like policy
with ' The Daily News,' to which he engaged himself for
a term of three years.^

' Dilie, Papers of a GriUc, vol. i. pp. 25, 33, 47, 61.

l2

148 THE EISE OF ' THE DAILY NEWS ' ch. XTirr.

His first year's experiences were trying. All the
efforts made to produce a paper as weU supplied as
' The Times ' with news and readable matter of all
sorts having failed to secure for it a circulation of 4,000,
while that of ' The Times ' was then at least 25,000,
Dilke adopted the same tactics — in this instance far
more venturesome — which he had pursued with ' The
Athenaeum.' On June 1 the price of ' The Daily News '
was lowered from fivepence to twopence-halfpenny,
which, as a penny stamp had to be used in either case,
was equal to a reduction of nearly two-thirds. Four
pages instead of eight were generally given, except
when the pressure of news or advertisements justified
a doubling of the size ; but though the circulation was
quickly raised to 22,000, this by no means covered the
expenses, and fi-esh troubles arose.

No attempt had hitherto been made to issue a
morning paper at so low a price, and the jealousy with
which ' The Daily News ' had from the first been
regarded by its contemporaries now developed into
violent opposition, and a league among the rivals for
its overthrow. ' The Times ' took the lead with fre-
quent and outrageous abuse, for which a pretext was
found in the Radicalism of the newcomer ; and under-
hand tricks appear to have been freely resorted to. The
worst injury done to ' The Daily News,' of which it
openly and angrily complained, appeared in a patching
up of the old feud between ' The Times ' and ' The
Herald ' as regards the procuring of foreign news.
' The Herald,' till now excluded from the system of
continental expresses which Walter had organised, and
in which he had allowed ' The Chronicle ' and ' The
Post' to participate, was invited to share in that ar-
rangement, and thus to obtain its news from abroad at
a cost of much less than half of the 10,000?. a year

1846-1849. UNDER DILKE'S MANAGEMENT 149

which it had agreed to divide with ' The Daily News.'
The whole outlay of 10,000^. a year under this head was
accordingly — and as the victim declared, by dishonour-
able breach of the contract between them — ^thrown on
' The Daily News,' ^ and in order to meet the additional
expense of 5,000^. a year, the price of the paper was
raised to threepence on October 29.

The warfare between the young journal and its older
rivals was carried on more hotly than ever, personal
animosities being expressed in political controversy,
and ' The Daily News ' was only enabled to keep alive
by the persevering shrewdness of its zealous manager
and the intervention of fresh capitalists who, being all
members of what was sneered at as the Manchester
school, wished it to be even more Radical, and therefore
more unpopular with many, than it had been at starting.
It was at length deemed expedient to revert to the
•original size and price, and on February 1, 1849, ' The
Daily News ' appeared once more as a fivepenny paper
of eight pages, the plea for the change being that less
than eight pages were insufficient for adequately resist-
ing, from day to day, the combined Toryism of ' The
Times,' ' The Chronicle,' ' The Herald,' and ' The Post ' ;
but there was probably not much financial advantage
from the change. Besides the original capital of
100,000/., another 100,000Z., it is said, was sunk in the
paper during the first ten years of its struggling life.
Dilke, who had had many disputes with his employers
during the term of his three years' engagement, retired
from tiie management in April 1849.^

1 Daily News, October 28, 1846.

^ As Enight Hunt was sub-editor of The Daily News at the time, we
may assume that his account of ' the staff and newspaper expenses of a
•daily paper in 1850 ' {Fourth Estate, vol. ii. pp. 196-204), was a statement
of the cost of producing that journal. It included the weekly salaries
of a chief editor 181. 18s., a sub-editor 121. 12s., a second sub-editor

150 THE RISE OF ' THE DAILY NEWS ' ch. xtih.

Forster had been succeeded in the editorship in the
autumn of 1846 by Eyre Evans Crowe, whose general
fitness for the post condoned or excused in the eyes of
the proprietors his Pahnerstonian leanings on foreign
policy, with which most of them were not in accord.
On all domestic questions, however, Crowe was at one
with the Manchester Radicals, and about most of the
foreign questions that came to the front in these years
the differences between them were not great. The
conduct of the ministers of Louis Philippe towards the
close of his inglorious reign deprived them of all
English sympathy, and, whatever the Whigs might
think, Radicals of every shade could not but agree with
Palmerston and the Tories in condemning such diplo-
matic muddling as showed itself in the Spanish mar-
riages complications and in French interference with
the Italian aspirations after liberty. After the ill-
managed revolution of 1848, moreover, and while the
injudicious republicans in France were preparing for
the second empire, Crowe could have little reason for
expressing in ' The Daily News ' opinions that were
not endorsed by Cobden and his friends. He was free
to give a generous support to the Hungarian as well as
to the Italian movements towards self-government, and
to condemn the absolutism of Austina and Russia no-
less than the more contemptible tyranny of the Bour-

101. lOs., a foreign sub-editor 81. 8s., and an estimate of 41. 4s. a day for
leader-writers ; also a Paris correspondent at 10^ 10s. a week, and agenta
in Boulogne, Madrid, Rome, Naples or Turin, Vienna, Berlin, and Lisbon,
varying from 11. Is. to 51. 5s., and receiving 24f. 3s. in all. The salaries
of sixteen parliamentary reporters amounted to 861. 7s. a week, and the
cost of law reports to about half as much, while 91. 9s. was spent on a
money article and city news. The chief printer's salary was 6i. or 62.,
and he had about sixty compositors and others under him. There were
about twenty machinists and boys. The publisher's salary was 51. 5s. a
week, and the total cost of production averaged 5202. ; the editorial ex-
penses being 220i., the cost of foreign and local correspondence 1002., and
the outlay in printing, machining, publishing, &c., 2002.

1846-1852. UNDER CROWE'S EDITING 151

bons, provided ids protests against these foreign scandals
did not involve suggestions of English intervention.
When in 1852 the differences between him and the
proprietors grew wider he resigned the editorship, which
was next held creditably by Knight Hunt during the
two years before his death.

Though ' The Daily News ' had troubled life durmg
its early years, it profited by the defection of ' The
Morning Chronicle' from Liberalism. After Black's
dismissal, in 1843, and yet more after the establishment
of ' The Daily News,' when Dickens drew away from it
several of its best writers, ' The Chronicle ' fared ill.
Having supported Lord Pahnerston, in opposition to
his colleagues, while he was foreign secretary ni the
Melbourne administration, it contmued to support his
views in opposition to the policy of Lord Aberdeen,
who was foreign secretary under Sir Robert Peel from
1841 to 1846, and it was still Palmerston's champion
in the press when he resumed the foreign secretaryship
in Lord John Eussell's ministry. This consistency
was not discreditable to the proprietor. Sir John East-
hope, but it gave oflfence to others, both in high and in
low quarters. In high quarters Lord John and those
of his colleagues who were not Palmerstonian preferred,
as was only prudent, the friendship of ' The Times,'
now proffered to them, to that of ' The Chronicle.'
' They have concluded an alhance with the leviathan of
the press,' GreviUe wrote in July 1846, 'which gives
them a temperate, judicious, but very useful support.
" The Morning Chronicle " is fmious at seeing the posi-
tion of " The Times," vis-d-vis of the government, and
the editor went to John Russell to remonstrate, but he
got no satisfaction. He merely replied that he did not
wish to have any government paper, but could not
repudiate the support of " The Times." He remembers

152 THE RISE OF ' THE DAILY NEWS ' ch. xvin.

that "The Morning Chronicle" was the paper of
Palmerston, devoted exclusively to him, and not that
of the government.' ^

The tactics of Easthope and his new editor were
not made more friendly to Lord John Russell by the
premier's contempt. They held to their plan of zeal-
ously supporting Lord Pahnerston and condemning all
who opposed him, and they certainly had warrant for
this in the line taken at that time by rival politicians as
regards the Spanish marriages. ' I sat next to Palmer-
ston at the sheriffs' dinner,' wrote GrevUle in February
1847, ' and told him a great deal about Paris, and espe-
cially the mischief " The Morning Chronicle " had done
there. He said, " I dare say they attribute the articles
to me." I told him, since he asked me, that they did,
and that it was difficult to convince them that they did
not emanate from him. He affected to know nothing
about them, but I told him it- really would be well to
find means to put a stop to- them. Meanwhile, the
attacks on Aberdeen have dtawn down on Palmerston
two vigorous articles in '' The Times," which may
teach him that he has everything to lose and nothing
to gain by such a contest, the very inferior articles in
"The Chronicle" not being read by a fifth part of
those who read the far better ones in " The Times." ' ^

A year after that ' The Morning Chronicle ' was
effectually purged of Palmerstonianism by a change of
proprietorship. On July 26, 1847, Sir John Easthope,
who had been carrying on the paper at a loss for some
time, incurred further loss by reducing the price from
fivepence to fourpence, and as soon as opportunity
offered for relieving himself of his burden he took
advantage of it. Reverting to its former price, and

' Greville Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. p. 406.
' Ibid., vol. iii. p. 62.

1846-1848. CHANGES IN 'THE MORNING CHRONICLE' 153

altering its politics, ' The Chronicle ' made a fresh start
on February 21, 1848.

Its new proprietors were the Duke of Newcastle,
the Earl of Lincoln, Sidney Herbert, and other influen-
tial Peehtes who were williag to spend money during
seven years in pushuig the interests of then* party ; and
its new editor was John Douglas Cook, who had for
some time been one of the reporters of ' The Times,'
and who gathered round him a brilliant staff of con-
tributors, iacluding George Sydney Smythe, afterwards
Lord Strangford, Gilbert Venables, Abraham Hayward,
William Vernon Harcourt, and Thackeray.^ Its busi-
ness manager was WiUiam Delane, the father of the
clever young editor of ' The Times,' the long-standing
feud between the two papers being to some extent
weakened by their approximation to the same views
in poHtics, as well as by their agreement in efforts to
stamp out ' The Daily News.' One novelty in the plan
of ' The Chronicle ' during these years of brief revival
was the issue of several editions during the day, furnish-
ing items- of late information so soon as they arrived,
and thus offering a clumsy substitute for the evening
papers, whose ranks had been augmented since Sep-
tember 1, 1846, by the appearance of ' The Express,' an
afternoon supplement to ' The Daily News.'

Differing widely from ' The Daily News ' in politics,
' The Chronicle ' vied with it in the department of
journalism which Dickens, even in his short term of
newspaper editorship, had done much to encourage.
The public interest in abuses of the law and the need
of amending faults that had been allowed to grow

' Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, edited by H. E. Carlisle, vol.
i. p. 125 ; Mackay, Forty YeoA's' Becollectiona, vol. ii. p. 150 ; A Collection
of Letters of W. M. Thackeray, p. 29. 'As if I had not enough to do,'
Thackeray wrote in October 1848, ' I have begun to blaze away in Tlie
'Chronicle again. It's an awful bribe — that five guineas an article.'

154 THE RISE OF ' THE DAILY NEWS ' oh. xvm..

up in our social institutions rendered it necessary for
these subjects to be written about in the newspapers,
and suggested various inquiries and reports by which
they could please if not instruct their readers. The
sort of work that Fonblanque had long been doing
in ' The Examiner ' was now done more grotesquely
in ' Punch ' and more picturesquely in weeklies like
' The Illustrated London News,' and when Dickens-
showed how eflfective could be a column or two-
on the value of ragged schools, on the abomina-
tions of hanging, and so forth, others followed suit.
The appalling outbreak of cholera in 1848 led to
investigations in which all the daily papers took part,
but no others so largely as ' The Morning Chronicle ' ;
and an unparalleled exploit in journalism of this sort
was begun in the same paper on October 18, when it
published the first of a long series of articles on ' Labour
and the Poor,' designed ' to give a full and detailed
description of the moral, intellectual, material, and
physical condition of the industrial poor throughout
England,' and, as it announced, carefully prepared by
' a chosen body of practical writers and thinlcers, ad-
mirably qualified by prior knowledge and habits of
observation for their task.' ^

The first of these articles furnished in more than
three columns the opening portion of an account of
industrial life and pauperism in Manchester, and it was
followed by many others dealing in the same way with
the various manufacturing towns, most of these being
written by Angus Bethune Reach, with help from
Charles Mackay and others.^ The intention was to-
publish one such lengthy and weighty article every
day, two each week treating of the manufacturing:

' Morning Clironide, October 18, 1849.

' Mackay, I'orty Years' Recollections, vol. ii. p. 153.

1848. JOURNALISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMEKS 155

towns, two others, most of which were written by
Alexander Mackay, treating of the rural districts, and
the remaiaing two, compiled by Henry Mayhew, to
whose initiation the whole plan was due, being devoted
to the aspects of low life in London, The order was
often disturbed by the pressure of parliamentary and
other matter for which room had to be found ; but
the articles were continued, with intermissions, through
several months, and the largest and most attractive
group furnished the substance of Mayhew's famous
work on ' London Labom' and the London Poor.' For
this work the author rightly claimed that it was ' the
first attempt to pubHsh the history of a people from the
lips of the people themselves, giving a literal descrip-
tion of their labour, their earnings, their trials, and their
sufferings, in their own " unvarnished " language, and
to portray the conditions of their homes and their
families by personal observation of the places and direct
communion with the individuals.' ^

Seeking to increase its circulation and influence by
such worthy projects as that, ' The Morning Chronicle,'
under Douglas Cook, was a zealous upholder of Peehte
doctrine in its political articles, and those articles were
all the more interesting because they were chiefly writ-
ten by men who, if not quite amateurs in newspaper
work, could hardly be called professional journalists.
One of the most energetic and persevering was Abraham
Hayward, who from the commencement of the new
rule, wrote two or three leaders every week. Hayward
was at home at clubs and fashionable dinner-parties,
and all through life an approved intermediary between
politicians and editors. He was also a ready writer.
Being in the gallery of the House of Lords on May 8,

1849, when the newly-made Earl of Derby, 'the Rupert

' Preface to London Labour and the London, Poor.

156 THE RISE OF ' THE DAILY NEWS ' ch. xviii.

■of debate,' almost procured by his brDliant oratory the
defeat of the bill to repeal the navigation laws, Hayward
scribbled on a few sheets of note paper a smart reply to
the protectionist arguments used during the sitting, and,
as soon as the debate was over, hurried to the printing
office with his article ready for publication next morn-
ing. This article, causing some astonishment when it
appeared, and rousing jealous feelings in the breasts of
•other newspaper writers, is said to have set the fashion
of issuing editorial comments on parliamentary proceed-
ings side by side with the reports of those proceedings,
instead of allowing a day to elapse.''-

' The Morning Chronicle ' was a serviceable, if a
costly, engine for the leading of the Peelites from the
Conservatism from which they started to the Liberalism
in which most of them found rest ; and the migration
and its guidance, skilfully carried on during the five
and a half years of Lord John Russell's first adminis-
tration, were nearly concluded during Lord Derby's
nine months' tenure of office ia 1852. ' The Times,'
always more or less friendly to Lord Aberdeen, was
preferred by him to the more devoted ' Chronicle,' as a
newspaper organ, when he became premier in December
1852 ; and it said all that could be said for him and his
colleagues to any useful purpose so long as it was pos-
sible for anything to be said with the smallest effect, but
this abandonment of ' The Chronicle ' for ' The Times '
was a cruel blow to the patient apostles of the men now
in power. On September 14, 1853, after complaining
that Lord John Russell, who preceded Lord Clarendon as
foreign secretary under Lord Aberdeen, seemed to have
a personal dislike for him, Hayward wrote to Sir John
Young, the chief secretary for Ireland, 'I must tell you
another " Chronicle " grievance which the editor wishes

' Pebody, Eriglish Journalism, and the Men %vho have made it, p. 118.

1848-1853. 'THE CHEONICLE ' AND THE PEBLITES 15T

me to mention. Copies of public documents and tlie
last despatch of Lord Clarendon, published two days
since, for example, are uniformly kept back from him
and given to " The Times." This is both unfair and
impolitic. " The Chronicle " is the only morning paper
that has uniformly supported the government, and
" The Times " constantly turns against it on the chance
of gaining any stray ray of popularity.' Young sym-
pathised with the conductors of ' The Chronicle,' and,
on his behalf. Lord Elcho wrote somewhat cynically on
September 28 : ' I am sorry that Cook is hurt at not
having received the Clarendon July despatch at the
same time as " The Times." He certainly is entitled to
be treated upon an equality, if not to have a preference
given to him, in aU matters of government information,
for he has certainly been a staunch friend to the Peelites,
and to the coalition, whilst our friend " The Times "jis
a staunch Mend only to " The Times." ' ^

But ' The Chronicle ' was losing ground and being
deserted by all its supporters, divisions arising even
among the Peelites of the inner circle that tried to keep
it alive. ' What has come over Harcourt ? ' Hayward
wrote on December 19 to the Duke of Newcastle, whose
special mouthpiece he was in ' The Chronicle.' ' His
language about the government seems borrowed from
" The Herald " or " The Standard." Cook, too, is get-
ting too bellicose. I had a long talk with him yester-
day, and I have written to him again to-day. The
articles in this day's paper, however, appear to me to
be in the right tone. He is a good fellow, and open
to reason, but rather apt to be swayed by men like
Harcourt, who, though a clever feUow, is rather too
fond of strong language and uncompromising steps.' ^

' Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, vol. i. pp. 189, 191.
» Ibid., vol. i. p. 220.

158 THE RISE OF 'THE DAILY NEWS' ch. xvin.

All Hayward's efforts to keep Cook in the right path,
or to restore political strength to their paper, however,
were unavailing. ' The Chronicle ' lingered on as a
would-be Peelite organ through 1854, and on May 30
in that year, writing to Sir John Young, Hayward
said, ' There is not a word of truth in a prevalent report
that " The Chronicle" has been sold.' ^ But the crash
came in the autumn. By a curious arrangement, the
paper with all its plant was then sold to Serjeant Glover
for 7,500^., on the understanding that, if he continued
to support in it the Peelite policy, he should have the
money back with interest, being paid 3,0001. a year for
three years.^

That contract soon fell through, as Grlover preferred
to draw a subsidy from Louis Napoleon, and to make
other experiments ; but while it lasted Hayward clung
to the sinking ship. ' Things seem settling at last,' he
wrote to Sir George Cornewall Lewis on February 8,
1855, ' and I am glad of it, for I have written the first
article of " The Morning Chronicle " for more than a
fortnight (being often obliged to re- write more than
once in a day), and I am dead beat. This paper is get-
ting very hke the Crimean army. One day, about a
month ago, the new proprietor, Serjeant Glover, came
to me and said he had broken with aU his staff, and
that, unless he was helped he should break down at
once, or put the paper into other hands. I thought it
best to save it for the party, and so resumed writing
for a period — a period very critical for my friends, and
during the three weeks preceding their fall I was their
only defender.' ' " The Chronicle " was sold to Glover
some months since,' Hayward said in a letter to Bulwer
Lytton on March 29, 1855. 'I write an article for it

' Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, vol. i. p. 221.
° James Grant, Newspaper Press, vol. ii. p. 311.

1853-1854. THE FALL OF 'THE MORNING CHRONICLE ' 159

now and then ; but that is the extent of my connection,
and the Peehte party have nothing to do with it.' ^

At the close of 1854 the circulation of ' The Morning
Chronicle ' averaged only about 2,500, while that of
' The Morning Post ' was about 3,000, that of ' The
Mornmg Herald ' about 3,500, that of ' The Daily
News ' about 5,300, that of ' The Morning Advertiser '
about 6,600, and that of ' The Times ' about 55,000.
The circulation of ' The Times ' was thus nearly thrice
that of the five other papers put together, and ' The
Advertiser,' bought of necessity by every member of the
Licensed Victuallers' Society, was next in rank ; but in
the course of nine years ' The Daily News ' had taken
precedence of the remaining three.

This youngest of the daily papers had been making
slow but steady progress under Crowe's editorship and
Dilke's management. The return in 1849 to the usual
price of bd. had lowered the circulation ; but it left a
much larger balance of income from each copy sold,
with which to defray the heavy expenses inevitable to a
newspaper that undertook to coUect accurate informa-
tion from places &r and near. No pains were spared with
this object, and along with an ample supply of news,
there was plenty of the original writing on divers mat-
ters of interest about which the readers now expected
to be instructed or amused. For some time Dr. Dio-
nysius Lardner was the Paris correspondent, and among
the numerous writers of occasional articles was Wilham
Hepworth Dixon, who contributed a series on * The
Literature of the Lower Orders ' and, in 1849, another
on 'London Prisons,' which led to the preparation of
his first volume, ' John Howard,' When Frederick
KJnight Hunt became editor early in 1852 he brought
to the work indefatigable energy and large experience

1 Correspondence of Abraham Sayward, vol, i. pp. 245, 252.

160 THE RISE OF ' THE DAILY NEWS ' ch. xvnr,

of the exact requirements of the paper and of its public.
Hunt had been trained as a doctor but found journalism
more to his liking, and had worked zealously on ' The
Daily News ' from its commencement, his original col-
league in the sub-editorship, "William Henry Wills,
having retired in 1859 to assist Dickens in the produc-
tion of ' Household Words.' Among Hunt's contribu-
tors was Harriet Martineau, one of the few women who
have found congenial employment in regular newspaper
writing.

' In April 1852,' wrote Miss Martineau, ' I received a
letter from a literary friend in London, asking me, by
desire of the editor of " The Daily News," whether I
would send him a leader occasionally. I did not know
who this editor was, had hardly seen a number of the
paper, and had not the remotest idea whether I could
write leaders.' At the age of fifty, however, she made
the experiment, and with great success. ' I sent him
two or three,' she reports, ' the second of which, I think
it was, made such a noise that 1 found there would be
no little amusement in my new work, if I found I could
do it. It was attributed to almost every possible writer
but the real one. This hit set me forward cheerily, and
I immediately promised to do a leader a week.' From
sending one she soon began to send two, and before long
the average rose to five or six every week.^ Her first im-
portant contributions were thirty-seven letters, written
between August 10 and October 10, 1852, while she was
making personal inquiry into the political and social
condition of the Irish people, which were afterwards
republished as ' Letters from Ireland.'

The relations between this contributor at Ambleside
and her London editor were pleasant. ' We were pre-
cisely agreed,' she said, ' as to the principle of the war,

' Harriet Martiiieau's Autobiography, vol. ii. pp. 405, 406, 412.

1852-1864. UNDEE KNIGHT HUNT'S EDITING 161

as to the character of the Aberdeen ministry, as to the
fallaciousness and mischievousness of the negotiations
for the Austrian alliance, and as to the vicious absurdity
of Prussia, and the mode and degree in which Louis
Napoleon was to be regarded as the representative of
the French nation. For some time past the historical
and geographical articles had been my charge, together
with the descriptive and speculative ones in relation to
foreign personages and states. At home, the agricultural
and educational articles were usually consigned to me,
and I had the fullest hberty about the treatment of
special topics arising anywhere. With party contests
and the treatment of " hot and hot " news, I never had
any concern, being sevex'al hundred miles out of the
way of the latest intelligence.' ^ The work continued
long after EJnight Hunt's untimely death, at the age of
forty, in 1854, when he was succeeded by his old col-
league, William Weir.

Illustration of the way in which work of another
sort was done for ' The Daily News ' in times when
railways were young and but few telegraphic lines had
been opened, is furnished by William Hunt, who was
then editor of ' The Western Courier ' at Plymouth, as
well as one of the local correspondents of the London
paper, his instruction being ' to keep pace with " The
Times." \ Plymouth was at that time a place of special
importance for collecting news, as the steamers bringing
reports of the Kaffir war and the gold discoveries in
Australia arrived there. ' In order to secure early in-
formation of the approach of a mail steamer,' we are
told, ' the newspaper correspondents employed men to

1 Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 405. Ajnong Miss
Martineau's later contributions, during a connection of more than twenty-
years, were the contents of two volumes, Endowed Sclwols in Ireland and
Biographical Sketches, the latter being fifty in number.

VOL, II. M

162 THE RISE OF 'THE DAILY NEWS' ch. xvni.

look out from the Hoe, the Devil's Point at Stonehouse,
or other points commanding the sea beyond the Break-
water, for the purpose of reporting to them the appear-
ance of the homeward-bound vessel oflF Plymouth
Sound.' On one Sunday morning Hunt got notice of
the expected vessel's approach, ' We were alongside
the steamer before she was moored,' he says. ' I lost no
time in boarding, obtaining the parcels of letters and
papers for " The Daily News " and questioning the cap-
tain, the steward, and some passengers as to the inci-
dents of the voyage home and the state of feeling in the
colony, and having distributed some recent newspapers
I had brought with me from the shore, I turned my face
landwards. I hastened to the railway station and, as
the train for London had left, I put myself in com-
munication with the traffic-manager, and arranged for a
special train, and while it was being got ready I ran
home for such articles as I thought indispensable for a
journey to London. On returning to the station I
found the train, consisting of an engine and tender and
one first-class carriage, ready. I made towards it, but,
before reaching it, heard my friend Stevens, of " The
Times," calling to me. I was not sorry to see him, for I
was only instructed to " keep pace with ' The Times,' "
and, having ascertained what the cost of the train would
be, I felt a little doubtful how the cost would be re-
garded in Bouverie Street, and moreover I felt it would
be more pleasant to have company than to travel alone
all the way to London.' The two friends tore along in
their special train, writing out their notes and eating
their dinner on the way. At Bristol they overtook the
regular train which had left Plymouth two hours before
them, and there they took their seats in one of the
carriages. ' We reached London rather later than we
ought to have done; but I arrived at the " Daily News "

1852-1854. UNDER KNIGHT HUNT'S EDITING 163

office time enough for my summary of tlie news to
appear in the paper the same morning, and also a leader,
written by Mr. Knight Hunt, the editor, after I had
repeated to him the intelligence, which included a vic-
tory over the Kaffirs by General Sir Harry Smith.' ^

^ William Hunt, Then and Now, pp. 46-49.

M i!

164

CHAPTER XIX.

' THE TIMES ' UNDER DELANE.

1841—1855.

John Thaddeus Delane was editor of ' The Times '
during more than a third of a century ; but the first
fourteen years of that long term, in some respects more
important and noteworthy than the remaining two-and-
twenty, cover by themselves a distinct stage of news-
paper history. Through a concurrence of causes and
accidents which favoured the exercise of Delane's
talents, ' The Times ' rose to its highest point of in-
fluence and power before the abolition of the com-
pulsory newspaper stamp had cleared the way for the
full development of journalistic enterprise and for the
working out of new rivalries. Since 1855 the conditions
have altered, and have been constantly altering, and no
skill or zeal has contrived to maintain ' The Times ' in
the unique position it formerly held.

Delane was born on October 11, 1817, and, after
taking his degree at Oxford, had made some study of
medicine, law, and other subjects before 1839 when he
was first employed on ' The Times.' His father, a
solicitor, and a Berkshire neighbour of John Walter's,
had before then become connected with the paper as a
business adviser, and the proprietor seems to have
discovered at an early date the young man's abilities.

1841. FROM BARNES TO DELANE 165

Barnes's sudden death in May 1841, preceded by that of
an older colleague who had expected to succeed to the
post, caused a vacancy which Delane was called upon
to fiU before he was twenty-four.-^ The appointment, if
venturesome, proved to be most fortunate.

' The Times ' had already far surpassed all the other
London daily papers in circulation and authority, and
Delane seems to have been singularly well fitted to
advance its interests. Barnes had been courted by
statesmen and the magnates of society, but had only
been regarded by them as a person whom it was neces-
saiy to tolerate and propitiate. The new editor was at
■once made a friend of by fashionable people and astute
politicians, and his good breeding and tact caused him
to be a welcome guest at dinner parties and in drawiag-
rooms, where his predecessor and most of his compeers
would have been iU at ease. His special patron, it
would appear, was Charles Greville, the clerk to the
privy council, a busy wirepuller, whose office brought
him into intimate relations with the leading men of all
parties f and he rapidly advanced in favour with others,
when it was found that he was a safe recipient of politi-
cal confidences, and generally a discreet interpreter of
the wishes and intentions of men in power. He knew
how to win respect, and how to make himself feared
where he was not liked. Writing little himself at that
time, and hardly anything at all in later years, he was

1 Times, November 25, 1879.

* 'The friendly relations which had for some time subsisted be-
tween Mr. Greville and Mr. Barnes,' says Mr. Henry Reeve, GreviUe's
editor, ' were strengthened and consolidated under the administration of
his successor. Mr. Delane was well aware that he would nowhere meet
with a more sagacious adviser or a more valuable ally. He owed to Mr.
■Greville his first introduction to political society, of which he made so
excellent a use, and where he gradually acquired the esteem of all parties,
and a position which no editor <?f a newspaper had before enjoyed.' —
GremLle Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. p. 3, note.

166 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELAJSTE oh. xix,

an apt instructor and critic of the writers under him,
and, with ample means at his command, he was able to
employ as many clever writers as he needed, reserving'
himself for use of his peculiar faculty as a journalist
in polishing and sharpening the articles written for him
by others.

Delane's editorship began at a time of political crisis
that gave him early opportunity for distinguishing
himself. Lord Melbourne's long-tottering ministry,
which had been almost consistently opposed by the
potentates of Printing House Square, was defeated in
June 1841, and the general election that followed in
July placed the Tories in an overwhelming majority, a
result which, though it could hardly have been other-
wise, ' The Times ' claimed and obtained credit for
largely promoting by its vigorous attacks on the dis-
organised Whigs. When Sir Eobert Peel took office
in September the paper was in a position to profit by
the turn of public opinion and to dictate with some
effect to the new government. It was not ostensibly,
or even really, a ministerial organ. Purporting, as was
its wont, to be an independent onlooker and mentor,
and to support no policy that it did not approve, it
adopted a supercilious attitude and was often violently
antagonistic towards those in office ; its object and well-
planned method, however, being to control rather than
to thwart their proceedings, and above all, by securing
early mformation as to the course of those proceedings
and by putting a cloak of omniscience over its extensive
knowledge, to give an appearance of leading where it
might be only following.

The five years of Peel's administration were years
of exceptional confusion in the political world, where
popular movements, which had been gaining strength
ever since the passing of the Reform Act in 1832, had ta

1841. SIR ROBERT PEEL'S ADMINISTRATION 167

be dealt with, and the old conditions of party warfare —
with a few great Whig and Tory families in keen
rivalry for place and power, and agreed only on the
necessity of holding the nation ia general at bay — ^had to
be abandoned or reshaped in accordance with altogether
new exigencies. Lord Melbourne's government had
broken down because its members were at feud with one
another and quite unable to cope with the forces op-
posed to them, deserted by the Radicals whom they had
played with and betrayed too often, and despised by the
Tories, among whom, however, there was as little co-
hesion, and who diflfered widely as to the priuciples to be
served and the tactics to be followed in working out
reforms, or in propitiating the multitude without yield-
ing more than could be helped to its demands. When
Peel took office he had to reckon with men like the
Duke of Wellington — who, though not at first in the
cabinet, was commander-in-chief and the real head of
the old Tory party — and Lord WharnclifFe and the
Duke of Buckingham, who were perforce his colleagues,
and with others like Sir James Graham and Lord
Aberdeen, his home and foreign secretaries, and such
younger and bolder Tory revolutionaries outside as
Lord George Bentinck and Benjamiu Disraeli soon
proved themselves to be. The social complications and
their political bearings which had to be faced were
aptly illustrated in ' Coningsby ' and ' Sybil '; and though
such domestic concerns as Chartism and Tractarianism,
poor-law reform, and above all the corn-law question,
and, only second to it, the various elements of trouble
in Ireland, were of paramount importance, foreign
difficulties were not slight, whether incident to the
meddlings of Louis Philippe's government in European
affairs, to the English disputes with the United States
which were then serious, or to such expansions of our

168 'THE TBIES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

remote eastern policy as showed themselves in the
Afghan disasters and the Sikh war.

On all these and on all cognate subjects, Peel, either
from honest conviction or on intelligent prudential
grounds, was inclined towards more Liberal action than
the old-fashioned Tories favoured, and he needed all the
help he could get, from journalists and others, in edu-
cating some of his colleagues in office, and many
members of his oWn party, as well as the public at
large. ' The Times,' under Delane, while personally
attacking him, helped his cause considerably in such
ways as seemed good to it, with much prejudice and
more arrogance, but in ways that were too serviceable
for him to take much umbrage at whatever was un-
gracious in their method or adverse in their details.
Delane knew how to use his opportunity, though it is
evident that during the lifetime of his first employer,
the John Walter who died in 1847, and who had strong
political views that it was incumbent on the editor
to enforce, he had by no means so free a hand as
afterwards.

' The Morning Chronicle,' in 1841, was still edited
by John Black, and in the main a zealous supporter of
Whig poHcy, with strong leaning to the line pursued
by Lord Palmerston, whose sympathies were in many
respects more Conservative than Liberal, and in some
more Conservative than those of Peel, and those of his
a,ssociates in office with whom he most agreed. ' The
Times,' though often urging the new government to be
bolder in its foreign policy than it inclined to be, was
not violent enough for the Palmerstonians, while on
most domestic concerns, in so far as it opposed the
government, its opposition was as much anti-Radical as
that of ' The Chronicle ' was Radical in its tendencies.
When Peel introduced his first budget in March 1842,

1841-1842. MINISTERS AND NEWSPAPERS 169

Teviving Pitt's scheme of an income tax and thus finding
means to dispense with some duties on foreign imports,
' The Times ' condemned the change in guarded terms,
writing ia the interests of the wealthy merchants and
great landowners with whom it was nearly always in
accord. On the other hand it encouraged tlie govern-
ment in its resolve to keep as clear as it could of the
foreign entanglements that Palmerston was anxious to
promote, and in this it did good service.

An instance occurred in the autumn of 1842, when
the Washington treaty negotiated by Lord Ashburton
for settling the disputes as to the boundary-lme between
Canada and Maiae was under discussion. ' " The
Morning Chronicle," ' Greville wrote on September 24,
' opened a fire upon the American treaty in the be-
ginning of last week, which has been well sustained in
a succession of articles of very unequal merit. To these
" The Times " has responded, and in my opinion very
successfully. It was amusing to me to read in the columns
of " The Chronicle " all that I had been hearing Pal-
merston say, totidem verbis. His articles were merely
a repetition of his talk, and that as exactly as if the
latter had been taken down in shorthand.' And on
October 4 Greville added, ' there has been a continual
discussion of the boundary treaty, kept uj) by Palmer-
ston's articles m " The Morning Chronicle," which have
been well replied to in " The Times " and " The Standard,"
and stUl more "The Spectator " and " The Examiner." ' ^

Many of Greville' s entries in his diary illustrate the
progress of newspaper controversy in those days, and
its growing importance m guiding pubhc opmion, espe-
cially as it was conducted by ' those not very unequal
antagonists,' ' The Times ' and ' The Chronicle.' ' The
bishop of London,' he wrote m October 1842, for
' Greville Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. pp. 105, 109.

170 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

instance, ' was and is still going about his diocese
delivering a very elaborate charge, which has excited a
good deal of notice, and parts of which have been well
enough quizzed m " The Morning Chronicle." To the
surprise of many people, his charge, like those of the
bishops of Exeter and Oxford, contains some crumbs
of compliment to the Puseyites, and an endeavour to
prescribe some formal observances half-way m advance
towards their opinions. It is curious, too, to see " The
Times," which certainly exercises no small or limited
influence, become decidedly Puseyite. Its Catholic ten-
dencies are intermingled with its poor-law crotchets,
and both are of a highly democratic character.' ^

The poor-law crotchets of ' The Times,' certamly
not of a democratic character, were due to the strong
prejudices of the proprietor, which in those days in-
fluenced the paper in many ways. Walter had entered
parliament as a Whig in 1832, but, as ' The Times '
showed, he soon quarrelled with Lord Grey's govern-
ment, and especially with its more Radical members,
among them being Sir James Graham. Graham in con-
junction with Grote and others helped to obtain the
reform of the poor laws in 1835, and this measure was
constantly and vehemently denounced by Walter, who,
now holding dignified rank among the Berkshire gentry
and member for the county, shared the views of the
old-fashioned squires and clergy as to the virtue of the
system of indiscriminate charity and patronage of pau-
perism which the reformers assailed. It was in conse-
quence of his strong holding of these views that Walter
lost his parliamentary seat in 1837, and his personal
animosity against Graham was not lessened when the
latter took ofiice as a Tory under Sir Robert PeeL
Against Peel also he had a grudge, which biassed his-

' GrevUle Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. p. 112.

1842-1845. 'THE TIMES' AS CENSOR 171

own action in parliament wlien, being elected member
for Nottingham in 1841, he again had a place in it ;^
and his dislike both of the premier and of his home
secretary was made manifest in ' The Times,' even when
it endorsed their public conduct.

At both of these ministers ' The Times ' sneered
whenever opportunity offered or could be found. In
July 1844 such an opportunity arose out of the com-
plaints that were made about the opening of Mazzini's
letters at the Post Office under Sir James Graham's
warrant. ' The press took it up,' said Greville ; ' the
Whig press as a good ground of attack on the govern-
ment, and especially Graham ; and " The Times," merely
from personal hatred of Graham, whom they are resolved
to write down if they can on account of his honest sup-
port of the poor law.' A select committee was appointed
to inqmre into the matter ; but ' this concession by no
means disarmed his opponents, and " The Times," par-
ticularly, has continued to attack him with the utmost
virulence, but so coarsely and unfairly as quite to over-
shoot the mark.' A year before that, on the introduc-
tion of Peel's Irish Arms Bill in June 1843, ' The
Times ' had attacked the measure ' in articles of extra-
ordinary violence,' though certainly not in consequence-
of any kindly feelings to the Irish ; and a year later,
when in April, 1845, Peel brought forward his scheme
for endowing Maynooth CoUege, ' The Times ' kept
pegging away in a series of articles as mischievous as
malignity could make them, and, in Greville's opinion,
' by far the most disgraceful that ever appeared on a
political subject in any public journal.' ^

' ' Walter came in for Nottingham,' says Greville, ' on an anti-poor-
law cry, and by the union of Cliartists and Tories to defeat the Whig
candidate.' — Greville Memoirs (Second Part), vol. i. p. 391.

» Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 249, 250, 189, 279.

172 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

Though thus at variance with Peel's government
on many subjects, ' The Times ' still gave it a large
measure of support, and was much in its confidence,
Lord Aberdeen, the foreign secretary, being Delane's
chief friend in Downing Street. The scandalous policy
of the French court in forcing Queen Isabella of Spain
and her sister to marry Louis Philippe's kinsmen was
notified to Lord Aberdeen while he was at Ostend in
1843. ' As soon as Aberdeen returned to London,' it
was reported by Greville, to whom Delane confided the
information ; ' he sent for Delane and told him this ; for
notwithstanding the hostile and offensive tone which
" The Times " has adopted towards the government
generally, particularly Peel and Graham, this formida-
ble paper is in a sort of alliance with the Foreign Office,
and the communications between Lord Aberdeen and
Delane are regular and frequent.' ^

The most memorable communication of all was
made in December 1845, in anticipation of the abolition
of the corn laws.

' The Times,' as has been noted, had as far back as
1839 denounced the duties on imported grain, while
nearly all the other newspapers had supported them ;
but it took a different view in 1842 when Peel gave
the first intimation of his desire to effect the urgently
needed reform. Its opposition, however, was not to a
reduction of the duty, which indeed it was always
willing to dispense with altogether, but to Peel's sliding
scale. In this view it agreed with Richard Cobden and
others whom as Radicals it detested.

Richard Cobden, who had entered parliament in
1841, made his first speech in the course of the debate
on Peel's proposal of a sliduig scale, and also objected
to it, not on the ground of its going as far as it went,

' QreviUe Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. p. 200.

1841-1845. THE ANTI-CORN-LAW MOVEMENT 173

but because it did not go far enough and was an insult
to the people who were starving under a protective
tariff. John Bright has told how, listening to the
speech from the gallery of the House of Commons, he
at the same time observed the deportment of Horace
Twiss, then one of the principal writers on ' The Times,'
who sat near him. ' He appeared to have the greatest
possible horror of anybody who was a manufacturer or
a caHco printer coming down into the assembly to teach
our senators wisdom. As the speech went on, I watched
his countenance and heard his observations ; and when
Mr. Cobden sat down, he said with a careless gesture,
" Nothing in him ; he is only a barker." ' ^ Cobden
continued to be despised as ' a barker,' and denounced
as a Radical incendiary, all through the years of the
anti-corn-law agitation, although now and then 'The
Times ' was constrained, while deploring that the move-
ment should have such incendiaries for leaders, to admit
that Cobden and his friends of the Anti- Corn-law League
were doing useful work. ' The League is a great fact,' it
declared, in a tone of sorrow, on November 18, 1843. ' It
would be foolish — ^nay, rash — ^to deny its importance. It
is a great fact that there should have been created in the
homesteads of our manufacturers a confederacy devoted
to the agitation of one political question, persevering at
it year after year, shrinking from no trouble, dismayed
by no danger, making light of ever}'- obstacle.' ' No
moralist can disregard them,' it said of this and other
facts ; ' no politician can sneer at them ; no statesman
can undervalue them. He who collects opinions must
chronicle them ; he who frames laws must to some
extent consult them.'

' The Times ' would have been much better pleased
had Sir Robert Peel's government consulted and obeyed

^ G. Bamett Smith, Life of Jolm Bright, vol. i. p. 144.

174 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

it instead of taking orders from the Anti- Corn-law
League. But it showed more magnanimity than might
have been expected from it in welcoming the change
when it was made at the instigation of others, and it
had unalloyed satisfaction in being allowed to startle
the world by a premature announcement of the change
;as soon as it had been resohj^ed upon.

The story of this announcement is remarkable, and,
as Greville said, ' presents a curious under-current in
politics,' and of newspaper influence therein. The state
of the country had become desperate, stormy meetings
being held everywhere, at wMch the government was
■called upon to save the people from famine by abolish-
ing the corn dues, and Peel had agreed with Aberdeen,
Graham, and some others of his colleagues, though not
with the more Tory half of his cabinet, that the demand
must be complied with, when, on November 22, 1845,
Lord John Russell issued a letter to his constituents,
avowing that the time had come for a compromise
between the Whigs and the followers of Peel by the
former's acceptance of Peel's offer of a sliding scale
against which they had hitherto protested. ' Let us
unite,' he said, ' to put an end to a system which has
been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of
agriculture, the source of bitter division among the
classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime
among the people.' ' The Times ' published this letter,
along with an article objecting to it. Thereupon, ac-
cording to Greville, ' Aberdeen sent for Delane, and
told him that Peel considered the letter mischievous,
but the article far more mischievous than the letter. In
the course of this and other conversations he gave
Delane to understand what his own opinions were, and
told him pretty clearly what sort of a contest was
going on in the cabinet.' A week later, on December 3,

1846. IN ALLIANCE WITH, LORD ABEKDEEN 175

Aberdeen again sent for Delane, and told liim that at a
cabinet meeting on tbe previous day Peel had threatened
to resign unless he was allowed to have his way, and
that this threat had induced the chief members, who
had hitherto been obdurate, to yield. ' After his com-
munication to Delane, Aberdeen asked him what he
meant to do with what he had told him. " Pubhsh it,"
he answered, "to be sure ! " ' Aberdeen had two
motives for thus revealing an important cabinet secret
to the editor of ' The Times.' As a free trader, he was
anxious to force his colleagues to keep their word. As
a foreign secretary, he was anxious to promptly con-
ciliate the United States government with which he was
then discussing the Oregon difficulty. ' Yesterday,'
Crreville wrote on the 5 th, ' the American mail went off,
and it took with it the morning papers, and, conse-
quently, this article in " The Times," It was exactly
what Aberdeen wanted. His most earnest desire is to
get over the Oregon affair as well as he can, and he
knows that nothing wiU have so great an effect in
America, nothing tend so materially to the prevalence
of pacific counsels, as an announcement that our corn-
laws are going to be repealed.' ^

The effects in England were more immediate. ' The
whole town was electrified,' Grreville reports, by the
a,rticle in ' The Times ' of December 4, ' announcing, with
an air of certainty and authority, that the discussions
and disputes in the cabinet had terminated by a resolu-
tion to call parliament together early in January and
propose a total repeal of the corn laws, and that the
duke had not only consented but was to bring forward
the measure in the House of Lords. Nobody knew
whether to believe this or not, though all seem staggered,
and the more so because " The Standard," though affect-
1 Ch-edlle Memoirs (Second Part), vol. i. pp. 310-313.

176 ' THE TBIES ' UNDER BEL ANE oh. xix,

ing to disbelieve " The Times " and treating it as a
probable fiction, did not contradict it from authority — as
might naturally have been expected, if it had been un-
true.' ^ ' The Morning Herald ' gave a more emphatic-
contradiction next day ; but ' The Times,' more than
usually contemptuous in its references to Mrs. Harris
and Mrs. Gamp, as it always called its morning and
evening Tory contemporaries, reiterated its assertion on
the 6th and again on the 8th. As we now know the
contradiction was partly correct. The Earl of Aberdeen
had misinformed Delane, or allowed him to misunder-
stand his statement. The cabinet, as a whole, had not
agreed to Peel's proposal on the 3rd, the Duke of
Wellington, who had lately joined the government as
president of the council, as well as Lord Stanley, Lord
Wharncliffe, and Lord Ripon, being obstinate; and
Aberdeen had evidently hoped that the premature and
inaccurate announcement in ' The Times ' would force
them to consent. As things turned out it led to a
breaking up of the cabinet on the 5 th when, Wellington
and his allies refusing to sanction the reform. Peel had
no option but to resign.

Neither of this, however, nor of its sequel was
Delane informed by his friend in Downing Street.
' On Monday,' Greville wrote on December 9, ' I looked
with anxiety for the article in " The Times," and found
only a calm adhesion to its story. Delane had seen
Aberdeen the evening before, who said to him that he
had not said a bit too much, except that his statement
the second day, that "the heads of the government had
agreed," was more correct than that of the first, which
said " the cabinet " had. He desired him to go on in
the same strain, reasoning on it as a fact. He gave
him, however, to understand that the publication had

' Gremlle Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. p. 309.

1845. CABINET-SHAKING 177

created considerable agitation. Delane in the course of
conversation said that the whole thing turned on the
Duke of Wellington, whether he was consenting or
not, but Aberdeen would not tell him which way the
duke was.' ' Wharncliffe,' Greville further reported,
'told me that Peel was very angry at the article in
" The Times," and sent a messenger to the queen there-
upon. There is no doubt that Delane in the excite-
ment of the moment said more, much more, than he
ought to have said, for the cabinet, so far from being
agreed on a measure, was in a state of disagreement
amounting almost to dissolution. Delane was very
imprudent, for he might have guarded his statement,
and yet produced precisely the same effect.' And on
the 12th Greville added, ' Yesterday all was known.
Peel had resigned on Saturday, but the ministers kept
that secret ; nor did Aberdeen teU Delane the state
of the case. I suppose he was afraid to tell him any
more.' ^

Delane proceeded without ministerial guidance or
misguidance. ' Yesterday morning,' wrote GrevUle on
the 13th, ' I called on Wharncliffe, who was stUl ill in
bed and very low. He complained of " The Times "
for saying that the Duke of Wellington had broken up
the government by changing his mind, first consenting
and then withdrawing his consent ; that " it was hard
on the old man," who had behaved admirably through-
out, never having flinched or changed, but he had said
to Peel that he (Peel) was a better judge of this
question than himself, and he would support him in
whatever course he might take. I said " the old man "
would probably not see the paper, and certainly not
care a straw if he did. I told him everybody asked
why they had resigned, and, when the day of explana-

1 Greville Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. pp. 315, 316.
VOL. n. N

178 ' THE TIMES ' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

tion came, that it would be difficult to give a satisfac-
torj'- answer to the question. He said he thought so
too ; that he never could see any sufficient reason (it
being now sufficiently clear that the supposed deficiency
of food would furnish none) ; but that from the begin-
ning Peel and Graham, especially Graham, had appeared
panic-struck, and would hear no reasons against the
course they had resolved upon ; that Lord Heytesbury
had contributed to this panic by his representations ;
that the original statement in " The Times " was the
most extraordinary, because on the very day when it
appeared, Thursday, the government was virtually
broken up.^ Peel resolved to repeal the coi-n laws, but
only to attempt it provided he could do so with a
unanimous cabinet. This he found was impossible,
and that very Thursday he determined to resign. They
begged him not to be in a hurry. He said he would
not, and would take twenty-four hours to consider it.
He did so, and on Friday he announced to his colleagues
that he persisted in his resolution, and should go down
the next day to Osborne to resign.' ^

These details of gossip are interesting as showing,
along with other things, the share which ' The Times '
had in bringing about the abolition of the corn laws.
Peel, Graham, Aberdeen, and others in the cabinet saw
that the revolution could no longer be delayed, and that
they had already delayed so long that Lord John
Russell and the Whigs had stolen a march on them in
yielding to Cobden and the repealers ; but the Peel
half of the cabinet was still haggling with the Wel-
lington half, and likely to procrastinate till it was too
late, when ' The Times ' article of December 4 forced
on an immediate settlement, which was all the more

1 But only after The Times article had shattered it.
^ Oremlle Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. p. 318.

1845-1846. COEN-LAW REPEAL 179

complete because it began with an alarming unsettle-
ment.

What followed is matter of general history. After
Peel's resignation on December 6 Russell tried to form
a cabinet but failed, chiefly because Palmerston was a
protectionist and declined to join him, and Peel became
premier again on the 24th, with the Duke of Buccleuch —
instead of Lord Wharncliffe, who had died in the inter-
val— as lord president of the council, and with William
Ewart Gladstone — instead of Lord Stanley, whose pro-
tectionism was steadfast, and who was presently to
become Earl of Derby — as colonial secretary. In
February 184fi Peel brought forward his great measure,
during the long debate on which, as Greville said, ' the
Liberals, while they support Peel, encourage and con-
firm the Tories in their indignation and resentment, and
they abuse the government quite as lustily, not for
what they are doing now, Ijut for all they have been
saying and doing for the last four years. The whole of
the press takes the same hne, the Tory and Whig
papers naturally ; and " The Times " chuckles and
sneers, and alternately attacks and ridicules Whigs,
Protectionists, and Peelites.' ^ On June 25 the Corn
BiU obtained third readmg in the House of Lords ;
but on the same night second reading was refused in
the House of Commons to the L-ish Coercion Bill by a
majority of 292 to 219. The Tories hated Peel more
than they loved oppression in Ireland, and in conse-
quence of their spite Lord John Russell became prime
minister in July.

With the new government ' The Times ' promptly
established relations similar, but in some respects
different, to those it had maintained with the old one.
Its great bugbear, Lord Palmerston, had succeeded

' Grmille Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. p. 367.

180 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xrx..

Delane's chief patron, Lord Aberdeen, as foreign
secretary, and it continued, though less violently, to-
oppose the Palmerstonian policy. Of Lord John
Russell, moreover, it had no better opinion personally
than of Peel ; but there was fair excuse for its seeking
an alliance with him, and this was done as soon as
possible after the seals had been transferred.^

Changes had come about and were developing in
the newspaper world, as part of the general growth of
public opinion and its bearing on political and social
affairs in which corn-law reform was but an incident.
' The Daily News ' had been started as a bold exponent
of Radicalism on all domestic if not on all foreign
concerns ; and ' The Morning Chronicle,' though more
than ever a champion of Lord Palmerston's views, was
losing influence, and had already ceased to be in any
way recognised as the Whig organ.

Some curious illustrations of the rivalry between
' The Times ' and ' The Chronicle,' which has been
referred to in a former chapter, were noted down by
Greville ' On Friday morning,' he wrote on December
20, 1846, ' an article in " The Times " announced that
the emperor of Russia was going to annex Poland to^
his empire, putting an end to the last vestige of Polish
nationality. Yesterday morning " The Chronicle " de-
clared this report was exaggerated, if not erroneous,
and that all that was contemplated was the abrogation
of custom-house regulations between the Russian and
Polish frontiers. The history of these contradictory
articles is this. On Wednesday at the cabinet dimier
Palmerston brought this piece of news, communicated
to him by Bunsen, who was in a great state of alarm
and indignation, and said that Metternich was equally
alarmed and eager to do something. The next morning-
' G)-eville Memoirs (Second Part), vol. ii. p. 406.

1846-1847. PALMERSTONIANS AND RUSSELLITES 181

Palmerston saw Brunnow, and asked Mm whether this
■story was true. Brunnow said he had never heard one
word of it, and did not believe it. He had, however,
written to Nesselrode to ask what the real truth was.
Palmerston, without doubt, on this sent the article to
^' The Morning Chronicle " — ^there is a phrase at the
•end of it about Guizot quite Palmerstonian. It is
amusing to see the two papers moved by diiferent
ministerial interests. John Russell told me at Windsor
yesterday that he believed the first accoimt.'^ This
account was probably inspired by Russell himself, or
by Sir Charles Wood, the chancellor of the exchequer,
who was one of Delane's new friends in office.

In January 1847 Grreville went to Paris on an
' officious ' mission to inquire into the feud then going
on between Thiers and Guizot, who were severally
supported ia the English cabmet by Palmerston and
Russell, and its bearings on British interests. ' " The
Times," ' he wrote on the 20th, ' has been writing articles
abusing Palmerston and giving out that public opinion
is all against him, and inclines to Guizot, doing all
the mischief it can. These articles were received with
a great deal of chuckling by Guizot and his people.'
* Yesterday morning,' he added on the 26th, ' " The
Morning Chronicle " came, with a bitter and violent
article against Guizot's speech in the chamber. I found
Guizot furious at this article, which he said he was sure
had been dictated by Palmerston himself.' This parti-
sanship gave great offence at home as weU as abroad.
' Aberdeen is in a state of violent indignation at the
brutal and stupid attacks on him in " The Moi-ning
Chronicle," which he attributes to Palmerston,' wrote
Greville on February 3 ; ' and he is so provoked that
he says he is disposed to bring on a foreign discussion

' Greville Memoirs (Second Part) vol. iii. p. 4.

182 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

after all, that he may vindicate himself.' And two
years later, on January 19, 1849, we read : ' Palmerston
has been dreadftdly nettled at some recent attacks on
him in " The Times." Charles Wood sent for Delane,
and entreated him to desist from these bitter attacks,
and he promised he would for the present ; he said they
had recorded their opinions and did not want to do any
more.' For all that, ' there was an article in " The
Times " on Thursday, in which, though there was no
attack on Palmerston, who was not named, there was
an allusion to former articles and to our conduct to
Austria, which evidently rubbed on a sore place, for
Charles Wood sent for Delane and expressed his regret
that we were on such bad terms with Austria. Delane
said he had all along been saying the same thing, when
Charles Wood replied that he did not think we had
done anything we could not justify and defend, but
unfortunately Palmerston's manner of doing things and
the language he employed had given great offence, and
that it was much to be regretted that he had given
advice and expressed opinions in so offensive a tone as
he had done, especially to Austria.' ^ The scandal here
particularly hinted at was one that ' The Times ' had
brought to light. It found that, with the connivance
of Lord Palmerston, stores were being shipped from
Woolwich for the use of the Sicilian insurgents, and
for this breach of neutrality Lord John Russell, who
was first informed about it by the newspaper article,
caused an apology to be made.^

' Oreville Memoirs (Second Part), vol. iii. pp. 39, 42, 52, 260, 261.

2 ' Mr. Delane,' says Mr. Henry Reeve, 'Itnew Hood, the army con-
tractor, a man who used to hunt with the old Surrey hounds, and by
accident learnt from Hood all this story. 27ie Times perceived the
importance of it, and soon afterwards charged the government with having
connived at a supply of arms from the queen's stores to the Sicilian in-
surgents. No notice was taken of this first charge. It was therefore

1847. THE SECOND JOHN WALTEK 183

An important event in the history of ' The Times '
occurred in 1847. ' Yesterday young Mr. Walter was
brought to the office and introduced to me,' Greville
reported on February 25. ' Old Walter is dying, and
his son is about to succeed (in fact has succeeded) to the
throne of " The Times," and to all the authority, influ-
ence, and power which the man who wields that sceptre
can exercise. He seems mild, sensible, and gentleman-
like.' ^ The second John Walter died on July 28, at
the age of sixty-three, having been the zealous manager
of his paper, and somethiug more, during nearly forty-
four years. When he commenced his work 'The
Times ' was a small, four-paged sheet, printed by hand,
with a circulation of barely more than 1,000 a day.
When he left it, the eight large pages which were its
normal si^e, contained at least six times as much
matter as a copy of 1803, and these were often increased
by pressure of advertisements or news to twelve, and
sometimes sixteen pages, the printing being done by
elaborate machinery, now greatly improved from the
method invented by Koenig in 1814, and the circula-
tion having been increased at least thirty-fold.

' The Times ' had already become the most pros-
perous and influential paper in the world, and its success
was mainly owing to Walter's enterprise as a man of
rare business qualities, joined with no little pohtical
shrewdness. It was faulty in many ways, and its faults
were partly due to Walter's own prejudices and to

repeated in stronger language. Upon this Lord John Russell (who knew
nothing of the matter) took it up, and said he must inquire into it, and
that the charge must be contradicted or the practice stopped. On inquiry
he found it was all perfectly true, and he compelled Lord Palmerston,
sorely against his will, to make a formal oflScial apology to the King of

Naples, the man whom he most hated and despised in the whole world.'

Grevilie Memoirs (Second Part), vol. iii. p. 272, note.
' Ibid., vol. iii. p. 64.

184 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

inclinations which his enemies denounced as sordid and
unscrupulous. There was much, however, to be said in
excuse, if not in justification, of the shiftings of policy
for which ' The Times ' was notorious, and it was aptly-
said by the writer of Walter's epitaph in his paper. ' He
was ever ready ' — we are there told — ' to measure the
most plausible schemes, the most popular opinion, the
most promising experiments, the most dominant parties,
the most powerful ministries, the most established re-
putations, the most inveterate usages, the most subtle
advances, the most overbearing classes, the most formid-
able combinations. Whilst other men found a refuge
for intellectual weakness or moral instability in pledg-
ing their faith to a statesman, a party, a theory, or a class,
he never forgot that such things were made for man,
not man for them. No sooner did he perceive that a
party was irreclaimably selfish, or a minister irremedi-
ably committed to anti-national measures, to corrupt
associations, or to an imbecile and therefore injurious
policy — no sooner was it evident that the temptations
incident to power had prevailed over the public spirit
of the statesman, than he promptly and openly with-
drew the support that had been tendered only for the
public advantage. A slavish attachment to a man, or a
clique, or a class, or a crotchet, he justly despised as the
hollow and too often criminal consistency of fools and
of knaves, whose whole and sole boast is that they have
never, excepting by accident, done any good thing.' ^

The third John Walter was twenty-nine when he
succeeded to the chief proprietorship of ' The Times.'
Elected member for Nottingham, on the day after his
father's death, as ' a Liberal Conservative, advocating
those measures which obtain the common support of
moderate Whigs and moderate Tories,' he had much to

' Times, July 29, 1847.

1847-1848. THE THIED JOHN WALTER 185

occupy himself with besides the detaUs of a newspaper
office. He appears to have attended, during many
years, with inherited intelligence and energy, to the
business concerns, and especially to such mechanical
improvements as experience and outside example sug-
gested. In 1848 he introduced Applegarth's steam
printing machinery, by means of which, using eight
circular cylinders, 10,000 copies could be printed in an
hour ; and many other changes of this sort were due to
his boldness and perseverance. The responsibility for
all editorial arrangements, however, was probably left
more than heretofore with Delane, who now, after six
years' learning and practising of his craft, was, at the
age of thirty, a thorough master of it.

Journalism had made considerable progress and been
developed in many ways during these six years, and
^ The Times,' with ampler space to fill and more money
to spend than were available for any of its rivals, took
the lead in nearly all other directions as well as in
strictly political writing. The fresh competition of
' The DaUy News,' after 1846, and the revived com-
petition of ' The Morning Chronicle ' for a few years
after it became the Peelite organ in 1848, which stimu-
lated even ' The Morning Post,' ' The Morning Herald,'
' The Standard,' and other papers to new exertions, was
not allowed by ' The Times ' to supersede it in any
department of newspaper enterprise. ,

There has always been more effort at anonymity in
' The Times ' than in most other papers, and, while
Delane was fond of speaking of himself as ' the man
who worked " The Times," ' the names of many of the
most zealous workmen under him are hardly known, or,
if known, it is only possible to assign to them in a few
instances the special kind and quantity of work they
severally contributed to the common or uncommon

186 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE cir. six.

stock. For nearly a quarter of a century after 1845
Delane's chief assistant in the editorship, and a fi-equent
contributor of articles, was his college friend and
brother-in-law, George Webbe Dasent ; and conspicu-
ous among his numerous leader writers in the early
years of his rule were Horace Twiss, George Wingrove
Cooke, Canon Moseley, Alexander Knox, and Gilbert
a'Beckett, soon to be reinforced or replaced by Austin
Henry Layard, Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sher-
brooke), Matthew Higgins (best known as Jacob
Omnium), Sidney Godolphin Osborne (best known as
S. G. 0.), and many others, including Charles Greville
and his friend Henry Reeve, and even the Radical Roe-
buck. Samuel Phillips, some of whose articles were
reprinted as ' Essays from " The Times," ' wrote much
on literary and other subjects until his death in 1857,
and John Oxenford was dramatic and musical critic for
nearly thirty years after 1847, while Tom Taylor, who
began newspaper work on ' The Morning Chronicle '
and ' The Daily News,' joined the staff of ' The Times '
not much latter as a writer on art and other matters.
A more serviceable contributor than some of these was
William Howard Russell, who began to work for Delane
in 1843, when he was only twenty- two, and who went
to Ireland in 1845 to furnish graphic accounts of the
potato famine.

To all the social movements and disturbances of the
stirring years of agricultural and industrial distress
before and after the middle of the nineteenth century, of
political agitation shown in such diverse enterprises as
the Chartist propaganda and the work of the Anti-Corn-
law League, of commercial recklessness, culminating
ui the railway mania, and so forth, ' The Times ' paid
quite as much attention as its contemporaries, its
handling being often less generous or gushing than

1841-1855. SOME OF DELANE'S WRITERS 187

that of some other commentators, but as much more
thorough as its ampler space and resources allowed,
and as was consistent with the position it claimed for
itself as the great instructor and controller of public
opinion and of legislative action thereon. It is espe-
cially to its credit that while the railway mania was
growing, and till it collapsed, in 1846, ' The Times,'
almost alone among the leading newspapers of the day,
persistently and earnestly denounced the folly and
crime that were thus being fostered, and this notwith-
standing the temptations to which it was exposed of
encouraging a craze, that, while it was at its height,
added some 4,000Z. or 5,000Z. a week to its revenue
from advertisements. Illustration of its good work in
another way appeared in its employment of James
Caird, who was assisted by John C. Macdonald, a young
barrister of the Inner Temple, on a tour of inspection
through all the agricultural districts, in order to inquire
into the causes of the prevalent distress, which had been
only alleviated by the reform of the corn laws, and to
suggest remedies of more permanent efficacy than any
that legislation could effect. Starting from Aylesbury
in January 1850, travelling through all the southern,
western, eastern, northern, and midland counties of
England, and reaching Huntingdon in February 1851,
Caird in the course of those thirteen months supplied
fifty-one weighty letters to ' The Times,' which, with
five others summing up his conclusions, in December
1851, were afterwards issued as a standard book on
' English Agriculture in 1850-51.' Other letters of
great value came from him in later years; and Caird
was only one of a crowd of writers on matters supple-
mentary to the political questions of the hour.

' I remember, the first time I spoke in public after
returning home from the continent in 1847,' said

188 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

Cobden in 1857, speaking at Manchester in stipport of
John Bright's candidature, ' I took the opportunity of
saying that the newspaper press of England was not free,
and that the reformers of England ought to set about
to emancipate it. Well, I got a most vicious article
next day from " The Times " for that, and " The Times "
has followed us both with a very ample store of venom
ever since.' ' Any man,' he added, ' who has lived in
public life as I have must know that it is quite useless
to contradict any falsehood or calumny, because it comes
up again next day just as rife as ever. There is " The
Times " newspaper always ready to repeat it ; and the
grosser the better.' ^ ' My plan,' he declared in a letter
to a friend in 1861, ' has always been to meet that
journal with a bold front, and neither to give nor to
take quarter. I may add that if ever I have succeeded
in any public proceedings it has always been in spite
of the opposition of that print. You may take my
word for it, you never can be in the path for success
in any great measure of policy unless you are in
opposition to that journal.' And in another letter,
addressed to a visitor from the United States, who
had expressed surprise at the favours shown to Delane
by political leaders and fashionable people, Cobden said,
' In America the editor or proprietor puts his name on
the front of his paper, fights the battles of his party
openly, shares in the honours of its victories, and is to
be found among the senators, the governors of states,
&c. ; but with us the conductor of " The Times " pre-
serves a strict incognito to his readers, on the plea that
anonymous writing is necessary for preserving his in-
dependence, whilst he inconsistently drops the mask in
the presence of those who dispense social distinctions
and dispose of government patronage — the very per-

' Richard CoMen's Speeches on Public Policy, vol. ii. p. 77.

1847-1855. COBDEN ON ' THE TIMES ' 189

sons towards whom, in the interests of the public, he
ought to preserve his independence.' ^

Though there was some excuse for his injustice,
Cobden was unjust to Delane. ' The Times ' was as
zealous as any Radical journal could be in advocating
reforms, ferreting out abuses, and condemning those
responsible for them ; but it chose its own objects and
methods, its own standpoints and lines of action, as it
had a perfect right to do, and though we may think it
mistaken we have no warrant for considering it dis-
honest. If it attacked Cobden and the Radicals ungra-
ciously and unreasonably, it used language as strong
about the Whigs and Tories, the aristocrats and the
millionaires who felt themselves flattered by Delane's
dining with them, and with whose opinions, sym-
pathies, and prejudices, he was generally in accord.^

' Jolin Morley, Life of Richard Gobden, chapter xxxii. ' He told his
friends,' Mr. Morley says of Cobden, 'in scornful tones of the social
deference that was paid in private by great people to the famous editor,
and was scandalised, here also rather unreasonably, to find him dining at
tables where every guest but himself was an ambassador, a cabinet minister,
or a bishop.' ' The conductor of a newspaper,' as Mr. Morley rightly
remarks, ' is entirely at liberty to choose what constituency he will
attract. It pleased The Times at that day to domesticate itself, it was
said, among the aristocracy. This may have been a very narrow and
ignoble policy, but Mr. Delane had as much right to prefer to spend liis
evenings among dukes and bishops as Cobden to spend his among mer-
chants and manufacturers.'

' Very curious illustration of the way in which the conductors of The
Times attempted to control public opinion by dictating to other news-
papers, as well as by ' thundering ' in their own columns, is furnished in a
letter addressed to him in March 1852, by Samuel Phillips, one of the
assistant editors, which has been printed by Mr. William Hunt, who was
at that time editor of The West of Mngland Conservative. ' It is of the
highest consequence,' Phillips wrote, 'that the Conservative press of
England should speak in one tone, and with the same well-defined object.
I take the liberty to point out to you the particular line which that press
can now adopt with the greatest advantage to the common cause.' Then
foUow several paragraphs of instructions, including this : ' The great rally-
ing cry of our party at the forthcoming election must be "The Insti-
tutions of England against the assaults of Democracy." Lord John.

190 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

Ambitiously assuming to itself the right and power
of saying what social and political changes were good
for the community and how all the foreign, as well as
all the domestic, affaks of the country should be carried
on, ' The Times ' — with more dignity than formerly, if
often preposterously, and with variations of policy, in
which, as a rule, the same or similar threads of prin-
ciple may be discerned by impartial critics, but which
to most onlookers presented many inconsistencies —
maintained its independent attitude towards Lord John
Russell's administration, which lasted till the beginning
of 1852, and towards Lord Derby's short-lived ministry
which succeeded it. When Lord Aberdeen took office,
in December 1852, the critics of ' The Times,' like a
good many others, found themselves in an awkward
position. There were rival factions and divided counsels
in the cabinet from the first, and a much stronger and
more compact government might have found it impos-
sible to face the foreign difficulties that, growing during
several years, were now approaching a crisis. Delane
had nearly always given a hearty support to Lord
Aberdeen, but he now favoured a bolder handling of
the Eastern question than the Peelites incHned to. He
had almost uniformly assailed Lord Palmerston, but
he now approved of the Palmerstonian tactics, which

Russell has proposed to carry reform much further than his lordship
intended, provided Mr. Cobden will join him in opposition to her majesty's
government. What this means we know, especially as Sir James Graliam
is invited into the firm. A ministry composed of Lord John, Graham,
Bright, and Cobden can have but one leading idea. Every sacrifice must
" be made to prevent this catastrophe, and, therefore, let us stand boldly
against destructive tendencies, as it becomes the instructors of the people
and the lovers of their country. "Religion against latitudinarianism,"
"The Monarchy," "The Church and every cherished institution of the
land against the flood of bitter animosity about to pour in upon them,"
" Stability againat Anarchy," such be our proclamations ! ' — 27ien and
Now, pp. 30-34.

1852-1853. LORD ABERDEEN'S GOVERNMENT 191

Palmerston, good as a foreign secretary, if he was good
at anything, was, in the home secretaryship, for which
he was quite unfitted, ostensibly debarred from enforc-
ing. Moreover, though he had for a long time been in-
sisting on the increase of our armaments, in view of a
war either with France or with Russia, Delane knew
better than most men how unprepared we were for
serious fighting. His embarrassments, therefore, as the
would-be arbiter of the nation's destinies, and at the
same time as the chief newspaper supporter of a coali-
tion ministry made up of forces that could not possibly
coalesce, were considerable.

They are Ulustrated by some passages in GrevUle's
diary. ' The opposition papers, especially " The Morn-
ing Herald" and " The Press," Disraeh's new journal,'
GreviUe wrote on June 22, 1853, ' have been making
the most violent attacks on Aberdeen and Clarendon,
calling for their impeachment on the ground of their
conduct m this Eastern quarrel, particularly charging
them with having been cognisant of, and approved of,
Menschikoff's demands, which have occasioned all the
hubbub. At last it was thought necessary to make a
statement in reply, which was done by " The Times "
on Thursday last. The article was a good one, but
contained an inaccuracy about which Brunnow wrote
a long but friendly letter of complaint to Clarendon.
The day after this another article was inserted to set
the matter right; but the explanations of "The Times"
failed to stem the torrent of abuse, and the Tory papers
only repeated their misrepresentations with greater im-
pudence and malignity than before.' ' " The Times "
newspaper, always famous for its versatility and incon-
sistency,' we read three weeks later, on July 12, ' has
lately produced articles on the Eastern question on the
same day of the most opposite characters — one warlike

192 ' THE TIMES ' UNDER DELANE ch. xm.

and firm ; the next vehemently pacific, by some other
hand. This is of small importance, but it is indicative
of the difi^erence which exists in the cabinet on the sub-
ject, and the explanation of the inconsistency of " The
Times " is to be found in the double influence which
acts on the paper. All along Palmerston has been
urging a vigorous policy, and wished to employ more
peremptory language and stronger measures towards
Russia, while Aberdeen has been very reluctant to do'
as much as we have done, and would have been well
content to advise Turkey to accept the last ultimatum
of Russia, and so terminate what he considers a sense-
less and mischievous quarrel. Clarendon has had to
steer between these two extremes, and, while moderat-
ing the ardour of Palmerston, to stimulate Aberdeen
and persuade him to adopt a course more congenial to
public opinion in this country, which, however inclined
to peace and abhorrent of war, is not at all disposed to
connive at the aggrandisement of Russia or to submit
to the insolent dictation of the emperor,. The majority
of the cabinet have supported Clarendon, and approxi-
mate more nearly to the pacific policy of Aberdeen than
to the stringent measures of Palmerston. When the
two articles appeared in " The Times " to which I par-
ticularly allude, Clarendon approved of the first and
found great fault with the other, while Aberdeen wrote
to Delane and expressed his strong approbation of the
second and his conviction that the public would sooner
or later take the views therein set forth.' ''■

A more steady-going supporter of Lord Aberdeen's
policy than ' The Times ' was ' The Morning Chronicle,'
still struggling on as an organ of the Peelite party, but
with a very small circulation and therefore slighted by
the Peelites in office. ' They are now popularly judged,'

' Greville Memoirs (Third Part), vol. i. pp. 70, 74.

1853. BEFORE THE CRIMEAN WAR 193

Abraham Hayward wrote peevishly to his friend Sir
John Young in October 1853, ' not by their own acts
and despatches, but by the vacillating tone and occa-
sionally unprincipled articles of " The Times." Lord
Aberdeen in particular has suflFered greatly from being
everywhere identified with " The Times." ' ^

' The Times ' certainly was not a safe friend to the
Aberdeen government. It urged it to be belhcose, yet
did all it could to discredit Lord Palmerston, who was its
most warlike member. With reason, however, it resented
the shilly-shallying conduct of ministers, and, holding
that the quarrel with Kussia could not be patched up,
it was anxious to precipitate a crisis. With this object
it put pressure on the French as well as on the English
authorities, sneering at their irresolution and disclosing
their secrets. ' Walewski,' wrote GreviUe on December
24, ' has been making a great flare-up about the article
in " The Times," stating that Dundas wanted to pursue
the Russian fleet after Sinope, and that Baraguay
d'Hilliers put his veto on the operation. Clarendon as-
sured him the statement was inserted without his privity,
and he had nothing to do with it. Walewski then asked
him to authorise a formal contradiction in " The Globe,"
or to let it be officially contradicted in " The Moniteur."
Clarendon declined the first, and advised against the
latter course. I offered to speak to Delane about con-
tradicting it in " The Times " ; which I afterwards did.
He said the fact was true, and he had received it from
various quarters, and it was useless to contradict it ;
but there was no reason " The Moniteur " should not do
so if they liked ; so I sent him to Clarendon to talk it
over and settle what was to be done to smooth the
ruffled plumage of the French.' ^

• Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, vol. i. p. 194.

* GreviUe Memoirs (Third Paxt), vol. i. p. 119.

VOL. II. O

194 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xrs.

How little inclined ' The Times ' was to smootli the
ruffled plumage of either French or English may be
seen from some sentences it published at the close of
1853. ' To bully the weak, to cajole the strong, to
seize by force or to circumvent by fraud,' it was said,
' are now recognised as the uniform tactics of the once
great upholder of order and treaties, and arbiter of the
disputes of Europe. The combined governments of
England and France have exhausted their diplomacy,
their remonstrances, and their patience, and they now
see themselves apparently reduced to the alternative of
quitting for ever their high stations among the nations
of the earth, forfeiting their promises and abandoning
their allies, or having recourse to war — the sport of
barbarous sovereigns, but the dread of free and pro-
gressive governments. There is no alternative. It is
a decision. With whatever reluctance, the western
powers must accept the challenge so insultingly flung
at them.' ' We have not sought war,' it was added,
' we have done all in our power to avoid it ; but, if it
must come, we trust its evils and sacrifices will be
cheerfully borne, as we are sure its perils will be man-
fully confronted.' ^

War was not formally declared tUl March 28, 1854.
But all preparations for it — or, so far as the English
government was concerned, all the pretences in lieu of
preparations — had been made long before. The prepa-
rations made by ' The Times ' were far more enterpris-
ing than there was any precedent for, and their outcome,
far greater than the projectors could have dreamt of,
was indeed remarkable. It already had as its corre-
spondent in Constantinople Thomas Chenery, a learned
orientalist then in his twenty-eighth year, who had
sent home letters about the preliminaries of the quarrel ;
' Times, December 31, 1853.

1853-1854. T\TLLIAM HOWAED RUSSELL'S MISSION 195

and as soon as it had been arranged that a military and
naval expedition should be sent to the Crimea, it selected
for its special war correspondent — a term now first
■employed — William Howard Eussell, who, after report-
ing the Irish potato famine in 1845 and 1846, had gone
to Denmark as a ' Times ' correspondent in 1848, and
had done other work for the paper. ' I was with the
first detachment of the British army which set foot on
Tm-kish soU,' said Kussell, ' and it was my good fortune
to land with the first at Scutari, at Varna, and at Old
Fort, to be present at Alma. Balaklava, and Inkerman,
to accompany the Kertch and Kinburn expeditions,
and to witness every great event of the siege, the
assaults on Sebastopol and the battle on the Tcher-
naya. It was my still greater fortune to be able to leave
the Crimea with the last detachment of our army.' ^
The vivid descriptions of what he saw during the
memorable fifteen months thus occupied, printed in
' The Times ' as they arrived by every mail, were alto-
gether unique, and for straightforwardness and effec-
tiveness have never been surpassed, or even equalled,
by any subsequent imitations of them. They quickly
raised the circulation of ' The Times ' from about 50,000
to more than 70,000, and caused an increase of in-
fluence not to be measured by its circulation. That,
however, was but a minor efiect of the enterprise in
which Russell so well succeeded.

His first letter home was written from Malta on
March 6, and showed that he intended to be a critic as
well as a chronicler. On April 8, when he reached
GaUipoli, he began to. point out faults and defects in the
planning and carrying forward of the expedition, and iu
later letters he continued and improved in his self-
appointed task, undeterred and only encouraged by the

' W. H. Russell, The British Expedition to the Crimea, preface.

0 2

196 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE cb. xrx.

efforts made to silence him. From Scutari he wrote on
May 15 : 'I have just seen a copy of " The Times " of
April 28, containing a report of a discussion in the
House of Lords in which the Duke of Newcastle, in
reply to a question from the Earl of EUenborough,
denies repeatedly certain statements contained in my
letter of April 10, respecting the arrangements for the
reception of our troops in Gallipoli. The statements in
question were not put forward by me as counts in an
indictment ; they were made in the discharge of my
duty as recitals of matters of fact. They are true in
letter and spirit, and notwithstanding all that passed
in that debate, I beg once more to reiterate them from
beginning to end.' ^ In that confident temper Russell
persevered in his disclosures and complaints, praising
as freely as he blamed wherever praise was deserved,
and doing full justice to the bravery and endurance of
officers and men as well as to whatever was good in the
administrative arrangements ; and in spite of all the
efforts made to controvert his allegations, very few of
them, and none that were important, were disproved.^

In order to see for himself how matters were going
on, and perhaps to quiet some doubts in his own mind
as to the accuracy of Russell's charges, Delane went to
the Crimea in the autumn and passed some weeks there,
his companion being Alexander William Kinglake, the
author of ' The History of the Crimean War.' On his
return, 'he made some strong charges against the
government, and particularly Newcastle,' as Greville
reported. ' He complained that after the expedition

' W. H. Rusaell, 27ie War (a, reprint of his letters from the Crimea to
The Times), p. 61.

' It should be mentioned that The Morning Herald soon followed the
example of The Times, and sent out Nicholas Augustus Woods as its
special correspondent ; and that before the close of the war several other
papers had representatives on the spot.

1854. DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR 197

was sent to the Crimea they remained idle, and made
no attempt to form an anny of reserve, or to send con-
tinual reinforcements to supply the casualties which
everybody knew must occur ; and this is true. Again,
he went to Newcastle, and urged him to make an imme-
diate provision of wooden houses against the winter,
which would in all probability be required, and he
suggested that this should be done at Constantinople,
where, all the houses being buUt of wood, and the
carpenters very skilful, it might easily be done at a
■comparatively small expense, and whence the convey-
ance was expeditious and cheap. His advice was not
taken ; nothing was done, and now that the winter is
come, and the troops are already exposed to dreadful
suflFering and privation, the work is begun here, where
it will cost four times as much and, when done, will
require an enormous time to convey the houses to the
Crimea, besides taking up the space that is urgently
required for other purposes.' That was only a small
part of Delane's complaining, and he did not confine
it to private talk with ministers and friends. ' " The
Times," as usual,' Greville wrote on November 26,
^has been thundering away about reinforcements, and
urging the despatch of troops that do not exist, and
cannot be created in a moment. I had a great battle
with Delane the other day about it, and asked why he
did not appeal to the French government, who have
boundless military resources, instead of to ours, who
have none at all, and accordingly yesterday there was
a very strong article, entirely about French reinforce-
ments.' ^

Russell's plain-speaking, and that of Delane's leader
writers at home, naturally gave great offence to the
authorities both in the Crimea and in England. Lord

' Greville Memoirs (Third Part), vol. i. p. 202.

198 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix..

Raglan, on November 13, reported that he had commu-
nicated with the correspondents of ' The Times ' and
other papers, and pointed out to them ' the public in-
convenience of their writings, and the necessity of
greater prudence in future ' ; and the Duke of New-
castle appealed to the patriotism of ' The Times ' and
other papers to abstain from publishing any intelligence
from the seat of war, which could be ' considered calcu-
lated to furnish valuable information to the enemy.' ^

It was this circular, with other efforts to gag the press,
that provoked the scorn and sarcasm of men like Albany
Fonblanque. 'The tables are turned,' Fonblanque said
in ' The Examiner.' ' The accusers are accused. The
press is the bane of the army in the Crimea. " Our
own correspondents " have lied away the efficiency of
the expedition, and made it falsely believe itself sick,
weak, hungry, and naked. " The Times " has done it
all. As a man may be made ill by telling him he is
looking ill, so an army may be brought to death's door
by representations of its jeopardy. . . . A slut, rebuked
by her mistress for some dirty corner, replied tartly,
" La, ma'am, it's not my fault, it's the nasty sun that
comes shining into the place, and showing every speck."
And this is the retort upon the press, which is charged
with the guUt of making the very mischief which it
exposes for the purposes of the correction. It is the
nasty light, discovering blots and foul places. We
wonder that we have not been told that the reason of
the superior condition of the French army is not a
better organisation and more active care, but simply
the absence of a free press. If the charges against the
press be true, the conductors of it concerned must be
persons of a malignity strange, foul, and unnatural, for,
according to the accusation, they are the instruments of
• Andrews, vol. ii. p. 331.

1854-1855. DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR 199

both truth and falsehood, with this detestable discrimi-
nation, that the truth is all for the service of the enemy,
and the falsehood all for the discouragement of our
troops and the disgrace of the country in the eyes of
Europe. Thus it is said that the Russians have learnt
to point their guns and shape their attacks from the
English newspapers, so faithfully do they describe weak
places in our lines ; while, on the other hand, they as
foully falsify the wisdom with which the affairs of the
campaign are conducted by the able and active staff,
whose merit is the everlasting and exclusive theme of
Lord Raglan's praise. There is a Httle inconsistency
in the handling of these two detestable faults, or, we
should rather say,crimes.' ^

But ' The Times ' persevered in its condemnation of
those who undertook to dkect the Crimean war, and,
doing much by its protestations and disclosures to over-
turn Lord Aberdeen's government, it was in no way
injured by the wrath it brought upon itself from courtly
critics. ' So far as I can collect,' Greville wrote on
January 2, 1855, speaking, of course, for his own
superior circle, ' the violent articles which " The Times "
emits day after day have excited general resentment
and disgust. They overdo everything, and while they
aa-e eternally changing their course, the one they follow
for the moment they foUow with an outrageous violence
which shocks everybody. But as those who complain
most of '* The Times " stUl go on reading it, the paper
only gets more rampant and insolent, for as long as its
circulation is undiminished it does not care what anybody
thinks or says of it.' ^ Its persevering exposure of the
incompetency of Lord Raglan and his staff in the Crimea
and of the equal incompetency of Lord Aberdeen's

' £i/e and Lahcmrs of Albany Fonblanqiie, p. 454.
' OreviUe Memoirs (Third Part), vol. i. p. 218.

200 ' THE TIMES ' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

ministry at home, brought ' general resentment and
disgust,' not upon it, but upon the authors of the
mischief and dishonour, and, at the threat of Roebuck's
committee of inquiry, the government fell to pieces in
January, to be replaced by Lord Palmerston's adminis-
tration, formed and reformed in the course of February.
More useful, however, than any changes ' The Times '
procured in the composition of cabinets were the changes
in military administration which more slowly resulted
from its bold statements of facts, and its arguments
thereon, chiefly supplied in Russell's letters from the
seat of war.

Meanwhile good work had been done at the seat of
war itself by the energy of ' The Times ' in collecting
by voluntary contributions a fund of 20,000Z. to be
expended in alleviating the miseries of the sick and
wounded which had been to a large extent caused, and
were in larger measure aggravated, by the neglect
and blundering of the authorities both in England
and in the Crimea. John C. Macdonald was employed
to administer this fund, and, reaching Constantinople
on November 7, 1854, he was promptly followed by
Sidney Godolphin Osborne, and noble assistance was
given to them by Florence Nightingale and her staff of
nurses.-^ This bright chapter in the history of the
Crimean campaign relieves, if by contrast it renders all
the darker, its other and gloomy passages, and, along
with Russell's rougher but not less chivalrous work,
reflects great credit on Delane and the other potentates
of ' The Times ' for the new and patriotic developments
of journalism which they initiated. ,

There was more and better occasion for boasting
here than in the pretexts for public congratulation
put forward by ' The Times ' when the war was over.

' S. G. Osborne, Scutari and Us Sospitals; Russell, The War, p. 288.

1865. APTEB THE CRIMEAN WAR 201

' Whatever be the losses and disappointments we have
undergone.' it was said, ' whatever the reverses of our
arms, whatever the drains upon our treasury, these
«vils have been is nothing compared with the tremen-
dous visitation Si that has fallen on our stubborn and
overbearing enemy. . . . There have not been wantiug
those who strove to persuade the masses that their
blood and their treasure were beiug sacrificed for no
adequate object, and that any concessions were better
than perseverance iu a war so unjust and unprofitable.
But the clear instinct of Englishmen enabled them to
see and feel that there was more at stake m the matter
than their bliad guides chose to admit, and to adhere
to the cause they had taken up with a steadiness and
pertinacity which put to shame the vacillating counsel-
lors who first involved us in war and then told us that
it was vain to contend with the manifest destiny that
urged Russia on to the conquest of the East.' ^

If ' The Times ' had done much towards securing for
the nation some advantage from the Crimean war and
towards enforcing the hard and necessary lessons taught
thereby, it had also done much towards bringing about
the war and strengthening its delusions. But in this
it was only true to its title, and no worse than a mouth-
piece of the times. The third of a century that has
since elapsed has not been long enough for fuU educa-
tion of the nation in either the ethics or the economics
of this and like questions.

While the war was in progress ' The Times ' had
courteously held aloof from a rather delicate contro-
versy, carried on somewhat indelicately by several of its
contemporaries. ' There has been,' GrevHle wrote on
January 15, 1854, ' an extraordinary run against the
court, more particularly against the prince, which is

' Times, December 31, 1855.

ii02 ' THE TIMES ' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

now exciting general attention, and has undoubtedly
produced a considerable effect throughout the country.
It began a few weeks ago in the press, particularly in
" The Daily News " and " The Morning Advertiser," but
chiefly in the latter, and was immediately taken up by
the Tory papers, " The Morning Herald " and " The
Standard," and for some time past they have poured
forth article after article and letter after letter fall of"
the bitterest abuse and all sorts of lies. " The Morning
Advertiser " has sometimes had five or six articles on
the same day all attacking and maligning Prince Albert.
Many of these are very vague, but the charges against
him are principally to this eflFect ; that he has been in
the habit of meddling improperly in public afi'airs, and
has used his influence to promote objects of his own
and the interests of his own family at the expense of
the interests of this country ; that he corresponds with
foreign princes and with British miuisters abroad with-
out the knowledge of the government ; and that he
thwarts the foreign policy of the ministers when it does
not coincide with his own ideas and purposes. Charges
of this sort, mixed up with smaller collateral ones, have
been repeated day after day with the utmost virulence
and insolence by both the Eadical and the Tory jour-
nals. Delane went to Aberdeen and told him that
immense mischief had been done, and that he ought to
know that the mischief produced was very great and
general, and offered, if it was thought desirable, to take
up the cudgels in defence of the court. Aberdeen con-
sulted the prince, and they were of opinion that it was
better not to put forth any defence or rebut such charges
in the press, but to wait till parliament meets and take
an opportunity to repel the charges there.' So ' The
Times ' was almost silent, and the controversy became
less exciting before it could be dealt with in parliament.

1854 PRINCE ALBERT AND THE NEWSPAPERS 20^

' For some days past,' Greville reported on January 21,
' the Tory papers have relaxed their violence against
the court, while the Radical ones, especially " The
Morning Advertiser," have redoubled their attacks.
There can be little doubt that the Tory leaders got
alarmed and annoyed at the lengths to which their
papers were proceeding, and have taken measures to
stop them. The Radical papers nothing can stop, be-
cause they find their account in the libels : the sale of
the " Advertiser " is enormously increased since it has
begun this course, and, finding perfect immunity, it
increases every day in audacity and virulence. One of
the grounds of attack, in " The Morning Herald " and
" The Standard" particularly, has been the illegality of
the prince being a privy councillor. In reply to this
I wrote a letter in my own name showing what the law
and practice are.' Again, on January 25, ' I wrote a
letter in " The Times," signed Juvenal, showing up
the lies of " The Morning Advertiser " and how utterly
unworthy of credit such a paper is.' Greville amused
himself with the behef that he had thoroughly routed
the enemies of Priace Albert without the intervention
of Delane, except as printer of his letters, or of par-
liament. ' The attacks on the prince are subsiding,'
he wrote on January 29, ' except from " The Morning
Advertiser," which goes doggedly on in spite of its lies
being exposed.' ^

When parliament met ' The Times ' was iU-rewarded
for its amiability in keeping out of a dispute on which

' Gremlle Memoirs (Third Part), vol. i. pp. 126-131. The matter was
discussed in both houses on January 31. ' Derby was put into a great rage
by Aberdeen's speech,' says GrevUle, ' and could not resist attacking me
(whom he saw behind the throne). He attacked my letter in which I had
pitched into the Tories for their attacks on the prince. I saw his people
turn round and look towards me, but I did not care a fig, and was rather
pleased to see how what I wrote had galled them and struck home.'

'204 ' THE TIMES ' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

its readers must have expected it to say something.
' There is always great anxiety on the part of the press
to get the queen's speech,' Greville remarked on Febru-
ary 2, ' so as to give a sketch of it the morning of the
day when it is made, and those who do not get it are
very jealous of those who do. There has been great
bother about it on some former occasions, once par-
ticularly, because one of the Derbyites gave it to their
paper, " The Morning Herald," it having been commu-
nicated in strict confidence, and according to recent
custom, to the leaders of the party. The other day
Aberdeen refused to give it even to " The Times," and
of course to any other paper, and he begged Palmerston
not to send it to " The Morning Post," which is no-
toriously his paper. Nevertheless the speech appeared
in " The Times," and, what seemed more extraordinary,
in " The Morning Advertiser," the paper which has
been the fiercest opponent of the government and the
most persevering and virulent of the assailants of the
prince. Delane has friends in all parties, and he told
me he had no less thaxL three offers of it, and therefore
he had no difficulty. But how did " The Morning
Advertiser " come by it ? ' ^ That ' The Advertiser,'
whose editor, James Grrant, never dined with dukes,
bishops, or privy councillors, should be as successful as
he was in the scramble for early copies of the queen's
speech was a real grievance to Delane.

During 1854 ' The Times ' quarrelled with Lord
Aberdeen's government on many other matters besides
the Crimean War, and it was especially spiteful against
two of its members, Lord John RusseU and Lord
Palmerston. Palmerston it continued to hate in spite
of his bellicose zeal ; Russell it despised on account of
his alleged treachery to his colleagues and truckling to

' Greville Memoirs (Third Part), vol. i. p. 134.

1855. ' THE TIMES ' IN OPPOSITION 205

the Radicals. It summed up the history of this year's
parliamentary session by describing it as 'a most
abortive expenditure of labour and ability,' in the
course of which ministers, ' by insisting upon forcing
measures on the attention of an unAvilling house, ex-
posed themselves to a series of mortifying and damaging
defeats.' ^

When Palmerston formed an administration of his
own in February 1855, with Russell soon to take office
under him as colonial secretary, ' The Times,' though it
gradually changed its tone, began by being more violent
than ever. ' " The Times " is going into furious oppo-
sition,' Greville wrote on the 17th, ' and Palmerston
will soon find the whole press against him, except his
own paper, " The Morning Post," and " The Morning
Chronicle," neither of which has any circulation or
any influence in the country. The whole conduct of
" The Times " is a source of great vexation to me, for
I am to the last degree shocked and disgusted at its
conduct and the enormous mischief that it is endeavour-
ing to do ; and I have for many years had personal
relations with its editor which I do not well know how
to let drop, and I am at the same time not satisfied that
their unbroken m.aintenance is consistent with the feelings
I entertain, and which ought to be entertained, towards
the paper.' ^

Poor Greville, originally a Tory who followed
Canning and, becoming a Peelite, settled down as a
Palmerstonian, did not break with Delane, and after a
time he read ' The Times ' with satisfaction again ; but
he was very unhappy in this February of 1855, and, as
he said, ' for the first time in his life really and seriously
alarmed at the aspect of affairs.' ' The press, with " Tl^e

' Times, December 31, 1854.

' GreoUle Memoirs (Third Part), vol. i. p. 242.

206 'THE TIMES' UNDER DELANE ch. xix.

Times " at its head, is striving to throw everything into
confusion, and running amuck against the aristocratic
element of society and of the constitution. The in-
tolerable nonsense and the abominable falsehoods it
flings out day after day, are none the less dangerous
because they are nonsense and falsehoods, and backed
up as they are by all the regular Eadical press, they
diffuse through the country a mass of inflammatory
matter, the effect of which may be more serious and
arrive more quickly than anybody imagines. Xothing
short of some loud explosion will make the mass of
people believe that any serious danger can threaten a
constitution like ours, which has passed through so
many trials and given so many proofs of strength and
cohesion. But we have never seen such symptoms as
are now visible, such a thorough confusion and political
chaos, or the public mind so completely disturbed and
dissatisfied and so puzzled how to arrive at any just
conclusions as to the past, the present, or the future.
People are furious at the untoward events in the
Crimea, and cannot make out the real causes thereof,
nor who is to blame, and they are provoked that they
cannot find victims to wreak their resentment on. The
dismissal of Aberdeen and Newcastle seems an in-
adequate expiation, and they want more vengeance
yet : hence the cry for Roebuck's absurd committee.
Then, after clamouring for Palmerston from a vague
idea of his vigour, and that he would do some wonder-
ful things, which was founded on nothing but the
recollection of his former bullying despatches and blus-
tering speeches, they are beginning to suspect him ;
and the whole press, as well as the malignants in the
House of Commons, tell them that they have gained
very little, if anything, by the change, and they are
told that it is not this or that minister who can restore

1855. ' THE TIMES ' AS A REVOLUTIONIST 207

our affairs, but a change in the whole system of govern-
ment, and the substitution of plebeians and new men
for the leaders of parties and members of aristocratic
families, of whom all governments have been for the
most part composed. What effect these revolutionary
doctrines may have on the opinions at large remains to
be seen ; but it is evident that " The Times," their
great propagator, thinks them popular and generally
acceptable, or they would not have plunged into that
course.' ^

GreviUe's fears were not realised, and the hopes of
the Radicals were disappointed. ' The Times ' was
only revolutionary within narrow limits, and the true
revolutionists got but slight and temporary help from
it. Such as it was, however, the help was useful ; and
Grreville's views about the functions of the press in
relation to aristocracy and democracy, as he understood
the terms and the realities represented by them, and to
the new conditions of government and national well-
being which were quickened by the Crimean war and
its concomitants, are eminently suggestive.

' The Times ' suffered by its early opposition to
Lord Palmerston's government, in which Lord Claren-
don was foreign secretary and Sir WUliam Molesworth
colonial secretary, until his death in October 1855, and
by the coolness between Delane and GrevUle, with
whom Henry Reeve was in close sympathy. ' Since
"The Times's" breach with Lord Clarendon and
Reeve,' Abraham Hay ward wrote to Gladstone on
January 2, 1856, 'they are no longer so well up in
information as they used to be. Molesworth is another
loss to them. Li Scotland and the far north,' he added,
*the cheap papers have gained enormously on the
London press ; but this is more owing to the telegraph

1 Greville Memoirs (Third Part), vol. i. p. 243.

208 ' THE TIMES ' UNDER DELANE ch. xrs,

than to tlie reduction of the duty. Within a given
radius round Aberdeen, for example, you get all the
most interesting news twenty- four hours before the
arrival of a London paper. I myself actually ceased
taking in a London paper whUst I was in Scotland,' ^
Whence it appears that other changes, presently to
be noted, were taking place both in the relations of
' The Times ' with its London rivals, and in those
of the London journals with the country at large,
' The Times ' was losing its supremacy.^

' Gorrespondence of Abraham Sayward, vol. i. p. 270.

' Readers of Anthony TroUope's novel, The Warden, which was
published in 1855, need hardly be reminded of its good-natured mockery
of Delane as Tom Towers, and of The Times as The Jttpiter.

209

CHAPTER XX.

THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.'

1849—1861.

Demand for removal of what were conveniently, though
not quite accurately, known as ' the taxes on know-
ledge ' followed as a matter of course upon the yielding
of parliament in 1846 to the more urgent demand for
removal of the taxes on the chief article of food. The
reduction of the advertisement duty m 1833 from three
shillings and sixpence to eighteenpence had been accepted
as an insufficient boon by newspaper proprietors and
the small proportion of the community which had much
occasion for advertising and at the same time considered
it important that the charge for each advertisement
should be two shillings less than it had hitherto been.
The reduction of the newspaper stamp in 1836 from
fourpence, with a discount of twenty per cent., to a
penny had hardly been regarded as a boon at all by the
proprietors, who were constrained to give their readers
nearly all the advantage of the change, or by the great
majority of people who, wanting really cheap news-
papers, found that, in most cases, they still had to pay
as much as fivepence or sixpence, in lieu of sevenpence,
for each copy. And the lowering of the paper duty,
also in 1836, though a substantial boon to both sellers
and buyers, had so little appreciable effect, and worked
so slowly, that it was almost lost sight of by those who

VOL. II. p

210 ' THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE ' ch. xx.

profited by it. These three fiscal changes, together and
separately, were of immense benefit and contributed
largely to the growth and improvement of journalism
during the ensuing twenty years, of which we have seen
something. Quite as much if not more of the growth
and improvement was due, however, to the general spread
of education and enlightenment, political and social, for
which those twenty years were remarkable, and a new
generation had grown up which could not be expected
to be satisfied with the boons, such as they were,
bestowed on a former generation. The reformers who
overthrew the corn laws were not slow in recognising
and encouraging its discontent.

' So long as the penny lasts,' Cobden said in 1850,
with reference to the newspaper stamp, ' there can be
no daily press for the middle or working class. Who
below the rank of a merchant or wholesale dealer can
afford to take in a daily paper at fivepence ? Clearly
it is beyond the reach of the mechanic and the shop-
keeper. The result is that the daily press is written
for its customers — the aristocracy, the millionaires, and
the clubs and news-rooms. The great public cannot
have its organs of the daily press, because it cannot
afford to pay for them. The dissenters have no daily
organ for the same reason. The governing classes will
resist the removal of the penny stamp, not on account
of the loss of revenue — that is no obstacle with a sur-
plus of two or three millions — but because they know
that the stamp makes the daily press the instrument
and servant of the oligarchy.' ^

Three wars had to be waged — one for abolition of
the compulsory stamp, one for repeal of the advertise-
ment tax, and one for removal of the duty on paper

before the fiscal obstacles to ' a free press •' were over-

' John Morley, Life of Cobden, ch. xxxii.

184&-18o0. PROTESTS AGAINST THEM 211

come, and, the victories being separately won, there
was not complete agreement of interests among those
who fought ia them ; but they were all parts of the
same movement, and all were included in the scheme of
the Association for Promotmg the Repeal of the Taxes
on Knowledge, which was established in 18-19 with
]\IUner Gibson for its president, Richard Moore for its
hard-woi-king chairman, and Charles Dobson Collett for
its indefatigable secretary. This association grew out
of a Newspaper Stamp Abolition Committee appointed
by the People's Charter Union, and was thus a direct
and most welcome ramification of the Chartist move-
ment. More limited in its scope, but working in har-
mony with that body, was the London Committee for
Obtaining the Repeal of the Duty on Advertisements,
also founded in 181:9, which had John Francis, the
publisher of ' The Athena3um,' for its most active
member, and William Ewart for its president, and
which, after its first undertaking had been achieved,
was reconstructed as the Newspaper Press Association
for Obtaining the Repeal of the Paper Duty.

Both these organisations worked vigorously in
issuing pamphlets, collecting signatures to parliament,
and interviewing ministers and officials ; and the whole
question was raised in the House of Commons on
Ajaril 16, 1850, when ]\Iilner Gibson brought forward
a series of resolutions condemning the duty on paper,
the compulsory newspaper stamp, the advertisement
tax, and the duty on imported books. He adduced the
difficulties of paper-makers like Baldwin and Crompton,
and of publishers like the brothers Chambers and Charles
Knight, in provldmg, or obtahiing material for produc-
ing, svich cheap literature as the public required, and
he showed to what hardships regular papers like ' The
Daily News ' were exposed in competition with publica-

p 2

212 • THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE ' ch. xx.

tions not ostensibly giving news, like ' Punch,' ' The-
Athenseum,' and ' The Builder,' which were allowed to
be issued without stamps, and yet more with coarser
weeklies, like ' The Town,' ' Paul Pry,' and ' Sam Sly,'
which lived by libels and scurrility, having full license
to comment upon facts and circulate scandalous fictions
so long as they reported no actual news. He was sup-
ported by Ewart, Hume, Roebuck, and other Radicals,
and also by Disraeli, who found it convenient for party
purposes to give utterance to what were doubtless his
real opinions on the matter. He was opposed, how-
ever, by Sir Charles Wood, the chancellor of the ex-
chequer, who declared that it would be ' an act of
political suicide ' to surrender the income, amounting in
1849 to 1,329,000/., derived from these several duties,,
and by Lord Jolm Russell, the premier, who depre-
cated any change that would be likely to assimilate the
English to the continental press. ' He was told,' said
Lord John, ' that for a halfpenny they might obtain in
Pai-is a newspaper full of the most infamous epigrams
and the cleverest writing, together with the intelligence
of the day. Schoolmasters were spread throughout
France, but, unfortunately, a great part of the news-
papers contained attacks not merely on the government
of the day, but on all government ; they were news-
papers that endeavoured to make government im-
possible, and schoolmasters that endeavoured to make
religion odious ' ; and he could give no countenance to
plans for encouraging any such abominations as popular
newspapers or popular education in England. Accord-
ingly Milner Gibson's first motion. ' that such financial
arrangements ought to be made as wUl enable parlia-
ment to repeal the excise duty on paper,' the only one
then put to the vote, was defeated by a majority of 190
to 89. Yet more overwhelming was the majority of

1860-1851. MILNEE GIBSON'S MOTIONS 213

208 to 39 against a motion brought forward by Ewart
tliree weeks later, on May 7, for repealing the advertise-
ment tax.-^

No attempt was made in 1851 to reverse these de-
cisions of the House of Commons ; but in April of that
year Milner Gibson obtained the appointment of a select
committee to inquire into the working of the News-
paper Stamp Act. Mowbray Morris, the manager of
^ The Times ' ; Knight Hunt, the sub-editor of ' The
Daily News ' ; Alexander Russel, the editor of ' The
Scotsman ' ; Michael James Whitty, the proprietor of
' The Liverpool Journal ' ; and some thirty others were
examined, and a valuable mass of evidence was collected.
' Your committee,' it was said in the summary of the
report, ' consider it their duty to direct attention to the
objections and abuses incident to the present system of
newspaper stamps, arising from the difficulty of defining
and determining the meaning of the term " news " ; to
the inequalities and evasions that it occasions in postal
arrangements ; to the unfair competition to which
stamped newspapers are exposed with unstamped publi-
cations ; to the limitation imposed by the stamp upon
the circulation of the best newspapers ; and to the
impediments which it throws in the way of the diffusion
of useful knowledge regarding current events among
the poorer classes, and which species of knowledge,
relating to subjects which most obviously interest them,
calls out the intelligence by awakening the curiosity of
those classes. How far it may be expedient that this
tax should be maintained as a source of revenue, either
in its present or in any modified form, your committee
do not feel themselves called upon to state. Other con-
siderations, not within their province, would enter into

' Hansard's Parliammtary Debates (Third Series), vol. ex. cols. 361-
422, 1238-1244.

214 ' THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE ' ch. xx.

that question. But, apart from fiscal considerations,
they do not consider that news of itself is a desirable
subject of taxation.' ^

The arguments and evidence of this parliamentary
committee were confirmed by a trial that attracted
much attention in 1851. As a supplement to his
weekly ' Household Words,' which was strictly a maga-
zine, Dickens had started a monthly ' Household Nar-
rative of Current Events,' which, after it had been
running some time, he was forbidden to issue without
its being stamped as a newspaper. Dickens's pub-
lishers, Bradbury and Evans, resisted this order, and
after prolonged litigation, when the case was brought
before the Court of Exchequer in November, three
judges declared that ' The Household Narrative ' need
not be stamped, while one was of an opposite opinion.
Dickens accordingly persevered, and, to relieve him and
others like him from uncertainty, a bill was introduced
in the House of Commons on December 6, 1852, exempt-
ing all monthly publications, whether containing news
or not, from the requirements of the Newspaper Stamp
Act. Lord Derby's administration was, however, soon
afterwards overthrown, and the project lapsed with
it.2

Earlier in 1852, on April 22, MUner Gibson had
quoted Dickens's case, and some more glaring instances
of the arbitrariness and confusion of the law, when he
again urged parliament to abolish not only the stamp
duty, but also the paper duty and the advertisement
tax. The vigorous debate that ensued lasted the whole
evening and was concluded on May 12. Cobden spoke
forcibly in condemnation of the ' taxes on knowledge.'
' The penny stamp,' he said, ' is a stamp impeding the

' Beports of House of Commons Committee, 1851, vol. xvii.
' Hansard, vol. cxxiii. col. 1045.

1851-1852. MILNER GIBSON'S MOTIONS 215

communication of modern history, for the facts of the
newspapers are the facts which interest and affect and
govern us all, and that stamp is the greatest obstacle
to intelligence in this country.' Ewart, Hume, Ricardo,
Cowan, and others argued to the same effect ; but
Disraeli, at that time chancellor of the exchequer and
not free to speak his mind, justified the taxes as ' neces-
sary evils ' ; and Gladstone, though saying that, when
the proper time arrived, he should like to see the paper
duty abolished, maiatained that if newspapers and
books were dearer than they ought to be, the blame was
not so much with fiscal requirements as with the trades
unionism which wickedly raised the wages of com-
positors and others to a level far above their deserts.
If the working classes wanted cheap literature, Glad-
stone then thought, they had a sufiicient remedy m
their own hands, as they could themselves cheapen the
labour by which the literature was produced. Views of
that sort, and the prejudices of a House of Commons
which clamoured for a war with Russia, prevailed over
the common sense of the Cobdenites ; and Milner
Gibson's three motions in favour of repeal of the paper
duty, the stamp duty, and the advertisement duty, were
severally defeated by majorities of 195 to 107, 199 to
100, and 181 to 116.^

Those figures — showing a balance of only 65 votes
in favour of the advertisement tax, whereas the balances
in favour of the compulsory stamp and the paper duty
were 99 and 88 — reasonably led the reformers to direct
theu' attention especially, in the first instance, to the
reform most likely to be carried. The agitation, kept
up by meetmgs, deputations, and petitions, durmg the
autumn of 1852 and the following winter, aimed chiefly
at getting the advertisement tax repealed. This, more-

' Hansard, vol. cxi. cols. 983-1027.

216 ' THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE ' ch. ix.

over, thougli the least important of tlie three, was the
reform that obtained most general support from the
newspaper proprietors and the influential portion of
the community. Well-to-do people cared little for the
prospect of having to pay only fourpence instead of
fivepence for their papers, and many of them dreaded
the prospect of a really cheap press springing up and,
as they thought, flooding the countr})^ with sedition ;
but they could see nothing but benefit in a lowering of
the charges for advertisements. And some of the high-
priced journals, particularly ' The Times,' ' The Illus-
trated London News,' and ' The "Weekly Dispatch,'
encouraged them in these views. The penny stamp
enabled any paper bearing it to go free by post, and its
removal would therefore be no gain to country sub-
scribers. Accordingly, though the Repeal of the Taxes
on Knowledge Association abandoned no part of its
programme, it consented to place the advertisement
question before the others, and when Milner Gibson
again brought forward his three resolutions in the
House of Commons, on April 14, 1853, their order was
changed.

Lord Aberdeen was then premier, with Gladstone
as chancellor of the exchequer ; and the great financier
declared himself unable to dispense with the 180,000^.
or so that the advertisement tax yielded. ' The govern-
ment,' he said, ' had no wish to retain, and could not
retain, any restraint whatever upon the press for the
sake of restraint.' ' Freedom of the press was not
merely to be permitted and tolerated, but to be highly
prized, for it tended to bring closer together all the
national interests and to preserve the institutions of
the country.' ' He should be delighted to see the day
when the duty on newspapers might be removed.'
But that day was not yet, and he must move the

1853. ABOLITION OF THE ADVEETISEMENT TAX 217

previoTis question. Botli Bright and Cobden spoke at
length in support of the motion, and insisted that it
was incumbent on a government which professed to
have a regard for popular education, and which found
it easy to raise money for wasteful armaments, to
relieve the nation of burdens so manifestly oppressive
as were these ' taxes on knowledge ' ; but the most
effective champion of the reform, so far as the advertise-
ment duty was concerned, was Disraeh, who asserted
that, had he remained in oifice long enough, he should
most certainly have devised a plan for meeting this
reasonable demand. Disraeli's speech secured for
Milner Gribson the Conservative vote, and on the first
resolution, ' that the advertisement duty ought to be
repealed,' the government was defeated by 200 to 169,
a majority of 31. The other two motions were rejected
by crushing majorities, that against the compulsory
stamp by 182, and that against the paper duty by 199 ;
but the advertisement tax was doomed. On July 1
Gladstone proposed as a compromise that, instead of
abolishing the tax, it should be reduced from Is. 6d. to
6d., in the hope that, by the consequent lowering of the
cost of advertisements, their number would be so much
increased as still to yield a respectable revenue ; but he
was again defeated, this time by a majority of only
5 in a small house. A biU to carry out the double
verdict was accordingly introduced, and the advertise-
ment tax ceased to exist on August 4, 1853.^

The second and more important victory followed
more quickly than might have been anticipated.
Dickens's triumph over the stamp commissioners as
reararded his ' Household Narrative ' had led to other
publications of the same class, which it was the wise
policy of the Taxes on Knowledge Repeal Association

> Hansard, vol. cxxv. cols. 1116-1187 ; vol. cxxviii. cola. 1091-1129.

218 'THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE' ch. ix.

to encourage. The secretary of that association, CoUett,
himself started one such, ' The Stoke-upon- Trent Nar-
rative of Events,' and the repeated prosecutions of
these sheets, as in the case of the publications of
Hetherington and his associates a quarter of a century
before, caused so much irritation that the authorities
soon saw that it would be prudent to give way. A
small measure, similar to that introduced by Disraeli
in 1852, exempting all monthly ptiblications from the
requirements of the Stamp Act, was passed in August
1853, and was the prelude to a much larger concession.

On May 16, 1854, Milner Gibson's proposal for
newspaper tax reform was repeated in an improved
shape, so cleverly contrived that few could object to it.
His motion was, ithat it is the opinion of this house
that the laws in reference to the periodical press and
newspaper stamp are ill defined and unequally enforced,
and it appears to this house that the subject demands
the early attention of parliament'; and after Bright,
Hume, Ewart, and the other champions of reform had
reiterated their arguments, the House of Commons
adopted the resolution without a division.^

How well prepared the country was for a change is
shown hj the fact that even ' The Times ' now and then
humoured its readers by endorsing the popular cry.
' With all our talk about knowledge, about the achieve-
ments of science, about education, schools, churches,
enlightenment, and heaven knows what not,' it ad-
mitted on the morning after Milner Gibson's motion
had been agreed to, 'there is something positively
ridiculous in taxing that intelligence which really
constitutes the great medium of a civilised country.
We make a great stir about teaching everybody to
read, and the state — that is, the nation — pays a quarter

' Hansard, vol. cxxxiii. cola. 419-460.

1854. THE NEWSPAPEK STAMP CONDEMNED 219

of a million a year in teaching cliildren to do little
more than read. Then we proceed to tax the very first
thing that everybody reads. In this way the news-
papers pay for the education of the country, for they
find their expenses aggravated and their cu-culation
restricted by an impost about equal to the sum spent
in educating the masses. But we have several times
enlarged on the absurdity of a tax which, as it is a tax
on news, is a tax on knowledge, and is thus a tax on
light, a tax on education, a tax on truth, a tax on
public opinion, a tax on good order and good govern-
ment, a tax on society, a tax on the progress of human
aff'airs, and on the working of human institutions.' ^

But though ' The Times ' occasionally insisted on
the repeal of the compulsory stamj), it generally took the
opposite view, which was in accordance both with tiie
class prejudices it supported and with its own parti-
cular interests. With a single impressed stamp for
a penny, and an additional halfpenny stamp for a sup-
plement when one was issued, ' The Times ' could go
post free all over the country, and even make several
journeys from place to place, whereas, unless the postal
arrangements were also altered, the affixed stamps
necessary to cover a single postage would cost far more
than the amount then charged. This, as Milner Gibson
and his friends alleged, was one of the unfair advantages
over other newspapers enjoyed by ' The Times,' and it
was openly and unwisely adduced by them as one of
their reasons for demanding a change in the law.
' The Times,' they urged, was a huge monopolist,
using and abusing its authority and influence in j^i'o-
poundmg mischievous doctrines, and especially mis-
chievous just now by its encouragement of the war fever
that was afflicting the country. Therefore, anything

' Times, May 17, 1854.

220 ' THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE ' ch, xx.

that could be done to weaken and damage ' The Times '
must be a public service. It was this indiscreet con-
tention, and the rumour that it was approved by the
government, which had reasons of its own for not being
sorry to injure ' The Times,' that prompted Albany
Fonblanque to write one of his witty articles in ' The
Examiner.' ' Some years ago,' he said, ' the cry was
that the power of the crown had increased, was increas-
ing, and ought to be diminished. It is held now in
certain quarters, high and low, that the power of the
press has increased, is increasing, and ought to be
diminished. The chief oflFender in this case being " The
Times," it is proposed, at the particular desire of several
persons in Manchester, to take measures to compass the
destruction of the said " Times," or at least to cripple
it very considerably. But why do this m a roundabout
way, involving in the injury other properties that are
not obnoxious either to Manchester or to Downing
Street? Why not set about the object frankly, fairly,
and directly ? Why not bring in a bill of pains and
penalties, setting forth the inordinateness of the power
of " The Times," and that no ministry is safe under it,
and enacting what may be thought calculated to render
it less formidable ? . . . Charles Lamb tells us of a sage
people who burnt down a house whenever they wanted
to roast a pig. We deprecate setting fire to the entire
press for the sole and separate purpose of doing " The
Times " brown. . . . Once upon a time, as Rabelais pre-
faces, when beasts could speak, it was thought a most
meritorious action to slay a giant ; and there is pre-
valent the same opinion now as to the giant of the
press, which is deemed too big to be permitted to live,
especially with the prospect of growing still bigger.
There is not room enough in this broad land for both
government and "-The Times," and, as we must have

1854-1855. THE NEWSPAPER STAMP CONDEMNED 221

a government, however bad, we must not have a
" Times," however good. Haman cannot suffer Mor-
decai in the gate. An old fable tells us of an ill-
favoured youth who was so displeased with his looking-
glass that he dashed it to the ground and shivered it
to a hundred fragments ; but, seeing his ugly features
in each of the broken bits, he found he had made the
matter a hundred times Avorse, and bitterly lamented
that he had changed the single unflattering reflection
for the multiplied. Such is the exact illustration of
what the government is about La compassiug small
change for " The Tunes." To kill the giant is all very
fine, but it is not always pleasant to live with dwarfs.' ^
There can be small doubt that the authorities were
more inclined to abolish the compulsory stamp by
jealousy of ' The Times ' than by sympathy with the
Manchester Radicals, but the change was inevitable
after the resolution adopted by the House of Commons
m May 1854, and, the Aberdeen government being de-
feated while Gladstone was leisurely preparing to act
upon his instructions, the task was cheerfully taken
in hand by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who succeeded
to the chancellorship of the exchequer under Lord
Palmerston. On March 19, 1855, he introduced a bill
rendering it optional for every newspaper to issue all
or any of its copies either stamped or unstamped, the
stamped copies being allowed the same privileges as
heretofore in transit thi-ough the post ; and he pointed
out that though by this change there would be a risk
of the revenue suffering to the extent of 400,000^.
a year, the amount which the stamp duty then realised,
it might be expected that at least half of the news-
papers published would still go through the post, and
thus, even if there was no mcrease consequent on the

1 Life Mid Labours of Albany FoiMaiique, p. 458.

222 ' THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE ' ch. xx.

reform, would yield a revenue of not less than 200,000/.
Almost the only objection offered to the proposal at
this stage came from Gladstone and Milner Gibson,
who protested against a huge paper like ' The Times,'
weigliing on an average six ounces, going through the
post for a penny, while the charge for the postage of
any printed matter not registered as a newspaper was
left at twopence if its weight exceeded half an ounce.
That complaint was heeded, and on June 6', 1855, nine
days before the new Newspaper Stamp Bill became law,
a treasury order was issued allowing four oimces of
printed matter to pass through the post for a penny ;
and this in itself was no small boon to the public and
the pubhshing trade, though not affecting registered
newspapers.

' I am quite satisfied, from years of attention to the
subject,' Bright said, in supporting Cornewall Lewis's
bill, ' that there never was so large a measure involved in
a small measure, so to speak, as is the case with regard
to this proposition for making the press free. 1 am
willing to rest on the verdict of the future, and I am
quite convinced that five or six years will show that
all the votes of parliament for educational purposes
have been as mere trifles compared with the results
which will flow from this measure, because, while the
existing papers retain all their usefulness, it will call to
their aid numbers of others not less useful, and, while
we enjoy the advantage of having laid before us each
morning a map of the events of the world, the same
advantage wUl be extended to classes of society at
present shut out from it.' ^

, In that speech Bright referred to the ' Times '
article of May 1854 which has been quoted from, but
said he should not be surprised if ' The Times ' of the

' Hansard, vol. cxxxvii. cols. 774-814.

1855. EEPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT 223

next morning contained an article of opposite purport.
His anticipation was correct. The next morning's
' Times ' angrily condemned the bill as a treacherous
expedient for weakening its position and encouraging-
cheap and dishonest rivals that would thrive by steal-
ing the information it collected and published at great
expense. ' What the London papers have to expect,'
it was urged, ' is that in tiie metropolis, and still more
in the manufacturing districts, there will be published
early m the day, and circulated by private hands, a
cheap class of papers giving all the news which xoe
believe to constitute our principal attraction, and to
obtain which we spend immense sums of money. The
chancellor of the exchequer is above this vulgar appe-
tite for news. He has no relish for an event until it
has been five years in the wood, and as many in the
bottle. But we must beg to assure him that the jDeojile
of England are actually impatient for news, and would
rather it were not even a day old. So we can easily
conceive that it will answer the jourpose of enterj^rising
gentlemen to republish our news in a cheap form by
ten o'clock for the metroj)olitan circulation, and two
and four o'clock for the provincial districts.' ^

Neither all the fears of ' The Times ' nor all the
hopes of John Bright were destined to be realised ; but
mighty changes were effected by the adoption of Sir
George Cornewall Lewis's Newspaper Stamp Bill.
When it was brought forward for second reading on
March 26, it was opposed by Disraeli, but it was
approved by Bulwer Lytton and other Tories, and
agreed to by a majority of 215 to 161. During its
passage through committee it was sharply criticised
by Lowe and other writers on ' The Times,' especially
with reference to the dangers of copyright matter being

1 Times, March 20, 1855.

224 ' THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE ' ch. xi.

pirated, but it was approved by botb Houses of Parlia-
ment, and it became law on June 15, 1855.-^

When tbe Newspaper Act of 1855 came into opera-
tion ' The Times ' had an average circulation of about
60,000, nearly thrice as much as that of ' The Morning
Advertiser,' ' The Daily News,' ' The Morning Herald,'
' The Morning Post,' ' The Morning Chronicle,' and
' The Pablic Ledger,' all massed together. The new
law, and the abolition of the paper duty, which occurred
six years later, produced a wonderful variation in the
relative positions of some of these papers, and brought
fresh rivals into the field, and they caused yet greater
revolution and progress in the country than in London.
About the most remarkable aspects of these develop-
ments notice will be taken presently. Here it will
suffice to say a little about the chief competitors of
' The Times ' at the stage we have now reached.

Among these ' The Morning Advertiser ' had the
largest circulation, in consequence of the rule which
made every member of the Licensed Victuallers' Society
a subscriber to it, and which thus ensured its admission
to nearly every public-house. Zealously edited at this
time by James Grant, it catered well for the large class
to whom it particularly addressed itself, but it was a
great deal more than a mere trade journal. Though
not really so Radical as ' The Daily News,' it was often
bolder in its attacks on both Whig and Tory politicians,
on the court and courtiers, and its style of writing was
well suited to the tastes of the great mass of its readers.

In the editorship of ' The Daily News,' William

' Hansard, vol. cxxxvii. cols. 1109-1167, 1658-1689, 1978-2036 ;
vol. oxxxviii. cols. 183-198, 442-454, 2003. It will be sufficient here to
note that the impressed stamp, the use of which for postal purposes was
optional until 1870, was then abolished, newspapers being allowed to pass
through the post with a halfpenny affixed stamp.

1856. EIVALS OF ' THE TIMES ' 225

Weir, its chief authority on railway and commercial
affairs from the hrst, succeeded Knight Hunt in 1854,
and he held the office until he died in 1858. An able
and honest man, Weir was somewhat narrow in his
views, and the deafness with which he was afflicted
was a serious obstacle to such personal communications
with others as were necessary to the proper manage-
ment of a paper designed, not merely to keep abreast
with Liberal opinion, but to lead and instruct it. It
was well written and eminently readable, but — out of
harmony, as it was bound to be, with the aristocratic
politicians who held common ground whether they
called themselves Whigs, Tories, Peelites, or Conser-
vatives— it was scarcely recognised as their champion by
Cobden, Bright, and the other Radicals of the Manchester
school. ' The Express,' which was an afternoon ver-
sion of ' The Daily News,' was not of much account,
and ' The G-lobe,' once famous as a vigorous evening
exponent of Liberalism, had lost its importance, not-
withstanding the vivacity that Francis Mahony, best
known as Father Prout, often imparted to its columns.
' The Morning Herald,' which soon after it became
the property of Edward Baldwin in 1843 made vigorous
efforts to compete with ' The Times,' establishing an
independent service of foreign expresses, and in other
ways indulging in a more lavish outlay than was
warranted by the result, had but a few years of bril-
liant life. When Edward Baldwin died ' The Herald '
descended to his son Charles, already proprietor of
' The Standard ' ; but both papers sank steadily, being,
it was alleged, only maintained by a subsidy from the
Emperor Napoleon III., and, nicknamed Mrs. Harris
and Mrs. Gamp by ' The Times,' they rendered no
service to and won no thanks from the Conservative
party for which they assumed to be spokesmen, untQ,

VOL. II. ~ Q

226 'THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE' ch. xx.

on Charles Baldwin's bankruptcy, they fell into the
hands of James Johnson, who, with John Maxwell as
his earlier adviser and assistant, soon began to improve
the property.

' The Morning Post,' of which Algernon Borthwick
became manager soon after 1851, he having previously
been its Paris correspondent, was also in need of
mending. When ' The Morning Chronicle ' was
bought by the Peelites, Palmerston transferred his
support to ' The Post,' and it was for some time his
mouthpiece ; but neither gained by the change. Speak-
ing of the negotiations for peace with Eussia after the
close of the Crimean war, Grreville said on December 11,
1855, ' Palmerston continues to put articles into " The
Morning Post," full of arrogance and jactance, and cal-
culated to raise obstacles to the peace. This is only
what he did in '41, when he used to agree to certain
things with his colleagues, and then put violent articles
in " The Morning Chronicle," totally at variance with
the views and resolutions of the cabinet.' ^

In yet worse plight was ' The Morning Chronicle '
after the Peelites had abandoned their expensive and
useless toy. For a few years longer, however, Serjeant
Glover published ' The Evening Chronicle ' as well as
its parent. ' The Public Ledger ' was now, as it con-
tinued to be, solely a repository of commercial an-
nouncements and advertisements.

There was thus considerable need of the reforma-
tion that was to be wrought in several of the London
daily papers by the Newspaper Stamp Act of 1855
and its sequels. But even greater was the change in
the weeklies. Among these ' The Illustrated London
News ' now stood almost if not quite in the first place
as regarded circulation. In the course of twelve years

' GrevUle Memoirs (Third Part), vol. i. p. 303.

1855. THE WEEKLY PAPERS 227

it had acquired an average sale of nearly 110,000,
and, edited since 1848 by Charles Mackay, who com-
bined vigorous politics and good literature with its
pictures and news, it surpassed all rivals as a sixpenny
paper for middle-class reading. In keen competition,
the one circulating about 109,000, the other about
107,000 a week, ' The News of the World ' and ' Lloyd's
"Weekly News,' along with ' The Weekly Times,' which
sold about 75,000 copies, provided Sunday readers with
as much general news, and as much Radical teaching,
of various quality, as could be issued for threepence
with a penny stamp. With Douglas Jerrold for editor
after April 1852, and Horace Mayhew and Hepworth
Dixon among its writers, ' Lloyd's ' was of higher
literary merit than the other two, and if it was not
quite so prosperous as ' The News of the World,' this
may be attributed to its conductor's good taste in not
giving promiuence to reports of law and police cases
which were unwholesome reading. ' The Weekly
Dispatch,' Kke ' The Examiuer,' and the other older and
high-priced weeklies, had already been far outstripped
by cheaper rivals.

One of the arguments used against abandonment of
the compulsory stamp and all cheapening of popular
literature was that it would encourage the dissemination
of seditious and blasphemous opinions, and tend to
demoralise the community. This was an old falsehood.
' It was not,' Lord EUenborough had said when com-
mending the fourpenny Stamp Act in 1819, 'it was
not against the respectable press that this bill was
directed, but against a pauper press which, administer-
ing to the prejudices and passions of a mob, was con-
verted to the basest purposes, which was an utter
stranger to truth, and only sent forth a continual
stream of malignity, its virulence and its mischief

228 ' THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE ' oh. xx.

heightening as it proceeded. If he was asked whether
he would deprive the lower classes of all political
information, he would say he saw no possible good to
be derived by the country frona having statesmen at
the loom and politicians at the spinning-jenny.'

Sixteen years of further persecution, according to
the pohcy of Lord EUenborough and his comrades, had
done something to provoke angry protest from ' the
lower classes ' and to educate hand-loom statesmen and
spinning-jenny politicians ; but the twenty years of
milder treatment that ensued had done much to repair
the mischief, and the chancellor of the exchequer, in
introducing his Newspaper Stamp Bill in 1855, had
easy work in refuting the alarmists. ' We are not,' he
said, 'left merely to conjecture on indirect evidence
with reference to the conduct and character of a cheap
unstamped press. There is already in existence a large
class of publications which, not containing news, are
exempt from the stamp, and, printed at a very cheap
rate, are circulated most extensively through the
country. Though these pubhcations do not contain
news, yet, if it were true that the people of this country
have so insatiable an appetite for immoral and licentious
reading as some seem to ascribe to them, they would
possess a very different character from what they
actually exhibit.' He instanced, among others, ' The
London Journal,' with its weekly circulation of 510,000,
and ' The Family Herald,' with its weekly circulation of
240,000, in proof that, if the readers of penny publica-
tions liked to be amused as well as instructed, they did
not care for vicious literature. ' These facts,' he added,
' must be considered as showing that the spontaneous
taste of the lower class of readers in this country, as
regards cheap unstamped periodicals, leads them to
prefer a species of literature wholly innocuous in its

1855-1861. THE PAPER DUTY 229

■character, and quite free from all the dangerous ele-
ments which have been held up to our fears.' Already,
he pointed oiit, coarse and scurrilous publications,
like ' The Town ' and ' The Age,' had died for lack of
readers, and experience showed that ' no immoral or
hcentious publication has a long life or obtains an ex-
tensive popularity.' That was mainly true, and at any
rate it amply justified the cheapening of literature for
the people.

It was quite as much in the interests of popular
literature and education ua general as of newspapers,
that, two of the three 'taxes on knowledge' having
been repealed, the third was persistently assailed until
it, too, was got rid of. This entailed a memorable
struggle, about which, however, but little needs to be
said here.

The agitation against the paper duty was vigo-
rously carried on by CoUett, Francis, and their fellow-
workers, and in MUner Gribson and others of the Man-
chester school they had zealous champions in parhament.
Some who should have been helpful, however, were
apathetic or hostile. Cobden complained especially of
' the sentimentalists.' ' They are not to be depended
on in political action,' he wrote in 1857, ' because they
are not masters of their own reasoning powers. They
sing songs or declaim about truth, justice, liberty, and
the like ; but it is only in the same artificial spirit in
which they make odes to dewdrops, daisies, &c. They
are just as likely to trample on one as on the other,
notwithstanding.' And he quoted Dickens, ' for ever
writing of his desire to elevate the masses and to put
down insolence in high places,' as an example. ' I saw
a note from him in which he refused to sign a petition
for the repeal of the taxes on knowledge, on the
express ground that he would not promote a deluge

230 ' THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE ' ch. xx.

of printer's ink in England similar to what he had seen
in America.' ^

The battle was won by stages. On June 21, 1858,
Milner Gibson persuaded the House of Commons to agree
without a division to an abstract resolution ' that it is
the opinion of this house that the maintenance of the
excise on paper as a permanent source of revenue would
be impolitic' This step gained, he thought it prudent
not to court defeat that yeai' by taking a vote on his pro-
posed motion, ' that such financial arrangements ought
to be made as will enable parliament to dispense with
that tax.' On February 12, 1860, however, he and those
who had worked with him during more than ten years
were rewarded for their pams and patience by Gladstone's
announcement, he being chancellor of the exchequer
again, that he proposed to dispense with the obnoxious
duty.

When the bill to that effect came on for second read-
ing on March 12, its rejection was moved by Sir William
Miles, and among those who opposed it was Lord
Robert Cecil, afterwards Marquis of Salisbury. Lord
Robert did not object to a regulation ' exempting from
paper duty school-books which were sanctioned by the
Committee of Education, in the same way that Bibles
were exempted,' but he ridiculed the suggestion that a
tax affecting cheap newspapers was ' a tax on know-
ledge.' 'Could it be maintained,' he asked, 'that a
person of any education could learn anything from a
penny paper ? It might be said that people might learn
what had been said in parliament. Well, would that
contribute much to their education ? They might read
the foreign intelligence, of which many would under-
stand very little, and they might see the opinions of the
editor of the paper. No doubt all this was very inte-

' John Morley, Life of Rkhard Cobden, ch. xxiv.

1860-1861. ABOLITION OF THE PAPER DUTY 231

resting, but it did not answer any true idea of education,
or carry any real instruction to the mind. It was a
prostitution of real education to talk of this tax upon
the penny papers as a tax upon knowledge.' The chief
ground on which other Conservative speakers based their
resistance to Gladstone's proposal was that, to meet the
estimated deficiency of 1,200,000/., the income-tax would
have to be higher by a penny than would otherwise be
necessary. The bill was read a second time, however,
by 245 votes against 192 ; a majority of 53 for the
government. The third reading, on May 9, was obtained
by a majority of only 9. On May 20, the bill was de-
feated by 193 votes to 104 in the House of Lords.

The turmoil that ensued furnished material for
an important chapter in constitutional history. ' It
eatailed,' said Gladstone, ' the severest parliamentary
struggle in which I have ever been engaged.' ^ But the
satisfactory issue of this struggle was the adoption of
such a plan for carrying out the reform by the House of
Commons that the House of Lords could not again
thTrart it. The paper duty was abolished on June 12,
and the new rule came into operation on October 1,
1861.

' Nineteenth Century, vol. vii. p. 374.

232

CHAPTER XXI.

THE MODERN REVOLUTION.
1855—1861.

The six years between the repeal of the Newspaper
Stamp Act and the surrender of the paper duty were
years of stupendous change in the conditions of jour-
nalism. Those fiscal reforms were themselves merelj
incidents in the revolution, as much consequences of aa
overwhelming movement already started as causes of
further progress ; but if they were inevitable, they were
also most benelicial.

' The Saturday Review,' commenced on Novembe? 3,
1855, was not the earliest, or, as a newspaper, the most
important of the ventures of this revolutionary period,
but it represented more clearly than any of the others
some of the fresh forces that were at work. Started chiefly
at the expense of A. J. B. Beresford Hope, and edited
by John Douglas Cook, immediately after the Peelites,
with him for newspaper trumpeter, had abandoned a
six years' effort to make ' The Morning Chronicle ' an
effective organ of their opinions, it became, withui
narrower limits and m lines of its own, a more remark-
able pioneer of modern developments in journalism.
' Their immediate motive in coming before the public,'
the projectors announced, 'is furnished by the impetus
given to periodical literature by the repeal of the News-
paper Stamp Act. The press has, by the late change in

1855. 'THE SATUEDAY REVIEW' AND 'THE TJ^MES ' 233

the law, acquired freedom rather than cheapness, and of
the benefits of this change the writers and proprietors
of " The Saturday Review " desire to avail themselves.'
Of its general plans and achievements somethui^ wiU
be said presently. The chief thing to be noted here is
that, as was proper to a contuiuator of ' The Morning
Chronicle,' it made it one of its special duties to oppoa'e
' The Times ' on political grounds, and to overthrovry if
it could, what it regarded as the monstrous monopoly
of the overweening tyrant of Printing House Square.

The keynote was struck ia a vigorous but extrliva-
gant article on ' Our Newspaper Institutions ' iii its
first number. ' No apology is necessary,' it was
said, ' for assuming that this country is ruled by "
Times." We all know it, or, if we do not know it,
ought to know it. It is high time we began to re£
the magnificent spectacle afforded by British freedor
thirty millions of cives Romani governed despotically
by a newspaper ! ' ' There is very little use in mquiring
how this state of things came about,' it was added.
' Probably the causes of which it is the result have bfeen
multifarious and contradictory. Our slavery to habit
and our love of change — our worship of success and our
sympathy with unprotected endeavour — our delight\ia
hearing our own age extoUed with fulsome adulatiola^

a

and our fancy for reading contemporary history with
margin of murmurs and a glossary of grumbling — thb
former dearness of newspapers and advertisements, and
their present cheapness — the independence of " Ths
Times " and its immorality — its adequacy to great
questions, and its industry in hunting out infinitely
small ones — the power and humour which it occasion-
ally displays, the sham wit and counterfeit energy
which it often puts upon us — each of these has no
doubt distinctly assisted in procuring for it some class

234 THE MODERN REVOLUTION. oh. xxi,

of readers, ,or contributes sensibly to its existing in-
fluence.' That influence ' The Saturday Review ' pro-
posed to undermine. ' We suggest,' it said, among
other things, ' that the existing despotism may be miti-
gated by the exercise of common sense and ordinary
perspicacity. We say to a confiding pubHc, Do your
best to resolve the " we " into " I." Because . William
Jones addresses you on Monday with vigorous logic
and persuasive rhetoric, do not take the conclusions of
John Smith for granted because they happen to be
printed on Tuesday in the same place. Reflect that
both . William Jones and John Smith are gentlemen
writing three times a week, be there matter or no
matter, be there straw for the bricks or none.' ^

'The Saturday Review,' proposing to give sixteen
pages of original writing and advertisements every
week for fivepence, or on a stamped copy for sixpence,
was only a critic, not a rival, of ' The Times ' and the
other daily papers. The first of the new rivals was
' The Daily Telegraph and Courier,' which had made
its appearance as a twopenny four-page sheet on June
29, 1855, a fortnight after the passing of the News-
paper Stamp Act. ' The former name,' it was said, ' is,
we trust, appropriate, from the sources of our special
information, and the latter as an evidence of our means
of dissemination and circulation.' ^

Both halves of the title were borrowed. ' The
Courier,' once famous and influential as an evening:
journal, had died ingloriously, not long before, after
half a century's existence. A ' Railway Telegraph '
had had very brief life in 1846 as one of the stock-
jobbing papers, then plentiful, before the collapse of
the railway mania ; and Herbert Ingram, elated by the

' Saturday Seview, November 3, 1855.
^ Daily Telegraph, June 29, 1855.

1855. THE RISE OF ' THE DAJLY TELEGRAPH ' 235

success of ' The Illustrated London News,' had started
a ' London Telegraph ' on February 1, 1848. This
latter was a bold and interesting experiment. In ' The
London Telegraph ' Ingram proposed to give "for three-
pence as much news as the other journals supphed for
fivepence. The paper was to be published at noon, so
as to furnish later intelligence than the morning jour-
nals provided, yet to be in time for delivery all over
London and in the suburbs early in the afternoon. It
was also to have a feuilleton, after the French example,
and it made a good beginning in this line with ' The
Pottleton Legacy,' by Albert Smith. Its editor was
Thomas Hodgskin, an authority on economical and
commercial affairs, and Charles Mackay wrote on
foreign politics. But it was an unprofitable specula-
tion. Reduced in size on May 15, its last number,
containing the last chapter of ' The Pottleton Legacy,'
was printed on July 8.^

' The Daily Telegraph and Courier ' threatened to
be as short-lived as ' The London Telegraph.' As a
cheaper paper than any of the other dailies, it caused
some sensation, but Colonel Sleigh, who projected it,
had not sufficient capital for the enterprise, and neither
by business energy nor, though Thornton Hunt was its
editor, by literary merit, was it able to compete success-
fully with its rivals, which had now reduced their price
to fourpence for unstamped copies. Sleigh had pro-
mised that the advertisement columns should ' in no

' ' Mr. Hodgskin,' says Dr. Mackay, 'reported that the disappointed
proprietor, in his unreasonable and unreasoning wrath at the failure, ac-
cused him of being the cause of it, from his constant use of the word
" bureaucracy," which, Mr. Ingram said, had occurred at least ten times
in one week in the leading articles. " Bureaucracy ! bureaucracy ! " he
exclaimed in irate terms, " such a word is enough to damn any news-
paper, and it has damned The Telegraph." '^Through the Long Day
vol. i. p. 351.

236 THE MODERN REVOLUTION ch. xxi.

case exceed the first page,' or that, if they did, a second
sheet of four pages should be issued ; but he never
had occasion to keep the promise. Advertisers refused
to patronise the new journal, and a day's income from
this source was sometimes do more than ten or fifteen
shillings. Sleigh accordingly fell heavily into debt, and
especially with the printer, Joseph Moses Levy, who
was at that time the proprietor of ' The Sunday Times,'
a formidable competitor, among the high-priced weekhes,
of ' The Weekly Dispatch.' In redemption of his debt,
and to save the paper from ruin. Levy took it into his
own hands, and shortly afterwards, on September 17,
1855, it was issued as the first of the penny daily
papers.

Li the opening article of the first number of ' The
Daily Telegraph and Courier,' the writer had spoken of
the power already achieved by the press, and the ' con-
quests ' it had already obtained, as ' the tacit acknow-
ledgment of the superiority of its mental advocacy
of right, in contradistinction to the dreaded dictation
of an armed and licentious mob.' These triumphs,
he declared, ' instead of rendering the press tyrannical,
immoral, and an instrument to be feared, have made it,
under a constitutional monarchy, the safeguard of the
throne, the improver of morality, and the guardian of
the subject. Let not, then, the new era of journalism
which we this day inaugurate in the metropolis of the
world be viewed in any other light than as an addi-
tional monitor to the people, and a loyal champion of
the sovereign and the constitution.' ^ And m the sixty-
ninth number, the first offered for a penny, ' The Daily
Telegraph ' claimed to be ' a newspaper compiled with a
care which places it in the hamlet, and secures its perusal
in the palace.' ^

' Daily Telegraph, June 29, 1855. " Ibid., September 17, 1855.

1855-1858. PROGRESS OF 'THE BAIL'S TELEGRAPH' 237

For his boldness, regarded by others as madness, in
proposing to issue a morning journal, saddled with all
the heavy expenses incident to the collection of news at
first hand, besides all the original writing, at the low
price of a penny, Levy was in time rewarded. He was
able to boast that, in January 1856, ' The Daily Tele-
graph and Courier ' had achieved an average circulation
of 27,000 a day ; ^ and on March 17 the sheet was en-
larged by nearly half its original size. ' Our success
has been complete,' it was then said, ' although we have
had combined against us the entire metropolitan, and a
large section of the provincial press.' On the following
September 6 the size was reduced ; but ' The Daily
Telegraph ' — dropping from its title the ' Courier,'
which had previously been pruited in reduced type, on
October 28 — appeared as an eight-page sheet on March
29, 1858. By that time its pi-osperity had been assured,
and it had some ground for asserting that it was
' without precedent or parallel,' seeing that, with special
correspondents in France, Prussia, liussia, India, and
Canada, it gave nearly as much, and quite as varied
reading, as any of its high-priced compeers, or the
most enterprising of the cheap rivals that, following its
example, had entered the field.

Of those rivals there were then three. ' The Morn-
ing News,' though first to appear, was of small account.
Commenced on March 3, 1856, it was a poor compila-
tion from ' The Morning Chronicle,' issued under the
same reckless and incapable management, and, with or
without design, calculated rather to prejudice the public
against the innovation of penny newspapers than to

' It may be well to remind the reader that, with the cessation of the
compiilsoiy stamp, the published stamp returns ceased to be of any value
as informants of the circulation of the various newspapers, as only so
many were stamped as were intended to pass through the post.

238 THE MODERN REVOLUTION ca. xxi.

answer any useful purpose. Its last number was pub-
lished on December 31, 1858, with a promise, which
was not kept, that a new series, giving eight instead of
four pages, and edited by Henry Mayhew, would be
begun in January. The two others were more impor-
tant experiments in penny journalism.

One was a double event. On March 17, 1856, was
commenced ' The Morning Star ' with ' The Evening
Star ' as its afternoon pendant. These estimable and
heroic advocates and exponents of the policy of the Man-
chester school, which had taken a lead in procuring the
Newspaper Stamp Act, were a tardy effort to make
practical use of the reform ; and ' The Daily Telegraph '
had been allowed to acquire a firm hold on popular
favour before the more earnest Radicalism of Cobden
and Bright had a mouthpiece in the press. Hesitation
about interfering with ' The Daily News,' which had
emanated from the same school ten years before, seems
to have caused some delay, and further delay was caused
by the difficulty in raising sufficient funds for the
venture. A capital of about 80,000?. was at length
raised, however, Cobden contributing 250?., and 4,500?.
coming from his immediate friends. John Bright's
brother-in-law, Samuel Lucas — not to be confounded
with another Samuel Lucas, who edited Disraeli's weekly
organ, ' The Press,' and was afterwards connected
with ' The Times ' — was the first editor, and under him
was an efficient staffi The plan, at starting, was to give
news rather than comments. There was but one
leading article in each number, and not much other
original writing. ' Facts,' it was annoimced, ' will never
be dealt with in these papers ' — the programme being
for ' The Evening ' as well as for ' The Morning Star '
— 'for party or personal objects. Believing that the
public are, ordinarily, able to supply their own com-

1866.

'THE MORNING STAR' 239

ments, these papers will report occurrences without
lengthened observations.' The promise was made that
they should ' pander to no popular passions,' and would
' strive to be essentially household papers.' ' They will
strive,' it was added, ' to enlist those kindHer sympathies
and more graceful social sentiments which contribute
to the happiness of home. Every useful measure of -a
philanthropic tendency will receive ardent advocacy, and
it will be a leading object of these journals to promote
those principles which most contribute to the permanency
of peace, and to the consequent increase of the pros-
perity as well of nations as of famihes.' ^ Unfortunately
those aims were too refined and exalted for readers
who enjoyed the roarings of ' the young lions of " The
Telegraph," ' and the undeserved opprobrium that fell
upon the members of the Manchester school during and
after the Crimean war aflfected the commercial prospects
of ' The Morning Star.' Even ' The Saturday Review,'
however, welcomed the newcomer, and commended it
for being free ahke from ' the vulgarity of " The
Daily News " and the imbecihty of " The Morning
Herald." ' ^

' The Morning Herald,' and also its evening col-
league, ' The Standard,' had sunk very low before the
bankruptcy of Charles Baldwin, the proprietor of both
papers, in the summer of 1857, when they were bought,
plant and everything, by James Johnson for, it is said,
16,500Z.^ ' The Standard,' however, was still the best cir-
culated and the most authoritative of the afternoon papers.
* There is no subject, celestial or terrestrial,' it was said
of it ia ' The Saturday Review,' ' on which it has not a
fixed, famihar opinion, which it is not ready to state on

' Morning Star, March 17, 1856.

' Sabwrday Bemew, March 22, 1856.

s James Grant, Newspwper Press, vol. ii. p. 111.

240 THE MODERN REVOLUTION ch. xxr.

oatli, and which no change of circumstances can alter.
This is the secret of its success ; its opinions are cast
in iron, and its language possesses a sort of amiable
coarseness which can present those opinions in a
hundred forms.' ^ When Johnson became its owner
he lost no time in improving ' The Standard,' issuing it
for the first time as a morning instead of as an evening
paper on June 29, 1857, reducing its price to twopence
and doubling its size to eight large pages ; but, for
the benefit of aristocratic readers, not only continuing
' The Morning Herald,' with all its silliness, as a four-
penny paper, without the stamp, but also starting a
high-priced ' Evening Herald.'

In ' The Standard,' besides all the news, a novel,
' Leonard Harlowe, or the Game of Life,' by Dr.
WUliam Russell, was now given, and, supplying twice
as much matter for twopence as either ' The Daily Tele-
gi-aph ' or ' The Morning Star ' provided for a penny, it
was a dangerous competitor. The competition was keener
after February 4, 1858, when the price was reduced to a
penny. ' When in 1857 the proprietorship changed,'
it was then announced, ' it was determined that a step
should be taken in advance in every department of
the journal. All the truly able and efficient portion of
the staff were retained ; fresh blood from the best tried
sources was introduced ; the size of the paper was
doubled ; the expression of opinion was widened from
narrow sectarian views to the comprehensive judgment
and reason of unbiassed Englishmen, in order that the
journal might find an acceptable place in every family.'
' The politics of " The Standard," ' it was added, ' are
those of the age — enUghtened amelioration and progress.
Our religious principles are staunch Protestantism,
without narrow sectarian bigotry or polemical zeal.

' SatiiA-day Review, February 2, 1856.

1857-1858. RECONSTEUCTION OF ' THE STANDARD ' 241

Bound to no party, our only object and aim are to
make this journal the earnest and honest representative
and exponent of true English spirit, interests, pros-
perity, and freedom ; striving manfully for the perma-
nent advance and greatness of the entire British
empire.' ^

It was this cheapening of ' The Standard ' that led
to the doubling in size of ' The Daily Telegraph ' seven
weeks later. The rivalry that within two years of the
passing of the Newspaper Stamp Act had been estab-
lished among London penny papers, and between them
and their high-priced contemporaries, was liveliest in
respect of these two — ' The Standard,' which professed
moderate and progressive Conservatism, and ' The Tele-
graph,' which was boldly Radical m some ways, but had
no sympathy with the Manchester school ; and it was
hotly mamtained during the years before and after the
abolishing of the paper duty, which was of immense ad-
vantage to both the penny combatants and, in less degree,
to nearly aU the others.^ ' The Morning Star,' able,
earnest, and generous, enforcmg unpopular opinions,
and appealing to a limited class of readers, was a com-
petitor to be sneered at by those who chose, but hardly
to be feared.

' The Standard,' having its long-established tradi-
tions, which merely needed to be improved upon, and a
good staff of writers, to be added to on occasion, was
in somewhat different case from ' The Telegraph,' for
which the whole machmery of a newspaper office,
human and other, had to be rapidly brought together.
Under Thornton Hunt's not too energetic editorship
and afterwards, capable writers and assistants had to be

' standard, February 4, 1858.

^ By the removal of the paper duty, it is said, Tlie Daily Telegraph
saved 12,O00L a year.

VOL. II. E

242 THE MODERN REVOLUTION ch. xxr.

enlisted. One of the first was George Augustus Sala,
not long before one of Dickens's pupils on ' House-
liold Words.' Another was Edwin Arnold, who in 1861
resigned the principalsMp of the Sanskrit College at
Poona .to become a leader writer for ' The Telegraph,'
and who at once made his mark by his articles on
Indian subjects. Another was John Merry Le Sage,
who, formerly a reporter for ' The Torquay Directory,'
joined the London paper at about the same time.^ An
active worker with lueyj from the first, moreover, was
his son, who took the name of Lawson on the death
of his uncle, Lionel Lawson. Edward Lawson was
writing dramatic criticisms and other articles for ' The
Telegraph ' in 1857.^

By the new and vigorous competition to which they
were exposed the high-priced papers missed much of
the advantage they would otherwise have gained from
the removal of ' the taxes on knowledge,' and at least
two of them suffered considerably. ' The Morning
Herald,' as we have seen, was only kept alive as an
adjunct of ' The Standard,' and it dropped out of ex-
istence in 1869. ' The Morning Chronicle ' died before
that, in 1862. ' The Daily News ' fared better, having
a steady-going editor, after WiUiam Weir's death, in
Thomas Walker, and, the more Radical connection of
the sometime Radical organ having gone over to ' The
Morning Star,' it satisfied the majority of the Liberal
party in its languid adhesion to Lord John Russell and
his Whig and Peelite allies. ' The Morning Adver-
tiser' had a more prosperous though less dignified
life, continuing to combine a certain form of ^nolent
Liberalism with its vigour as a trade organ, the licensed
victuallers being, as a body, more Liberal than Conser-

' William Hunt, Then and Now, p. 66.

" Edmund Yates, Recolhdions and Experiences, vol. i. p. 297.

1855-1861. THE HIGH-PEICED PAPERS 243

vative until the legislative interference with their trade
which culminated in the Licensing Act of 1868 turned
the current of their politics. Apart from ' The Times,'
the only other political daily paper was ' The Morning
Post ' ; and . ' The Post ' obtained a new lease of life
from reforms that on principle it opposed.

' The Morning Post ' now stood alone as the aristo-
cratic paper, and under the skilful management of its
young editor, Algernon Borthwick, it was much more
than a channel for 'fashionable intelligence.' As the
champion and spokesman of Lord Palmerston, who
found it convenient to have a newspaper organ of his
own, agreeing with Mm on matters about which he was
sometimes at variance with the colleagues over whom
he presided, and as Palmerston's ally or mouthpiece
in zealous support of the policy of Napoleon III., it
acquired a unique position among English journals.
' Intelligence arrived yesterday,' Greville wrote on
January 1, 1856, 'that Esterhazy had presented the
Austrian proposal to Nesselrode on the 28th, who had
received it in profound silence. Yesterday morning " The
Morning Post," in communicating this fact, put forth an
article indecently violent and menacing agamst Prussia ;
and, as it contained a statement of what the Emperor
Napoleon had said to Baron Seebach, which was exactly
what Persigny had told Clarendon, this alone would
prove, if any proof were required, that the article was
inserted either by Palmerston or by Persigny. " The
Morning Post " derives its only importance from being
the gazette of Palmerston or of the French govern-
ment, and it is not very easy to determine which of the
two is guilty of this article.' And on the next day
Greville added, ' The speech which Louis Napoleon
addressed to the imperial guard the day before yester-
day, when they marched into Paris in triumph, gives

B 2

244 THE MODERN KEVOLUTION ch. xxi.

reason for suspecting that the manifesto against Prussia
in " The Morning Post " was French, for there is
no small correspondence between the speech and the
article.' ^ Such use of ' The Morning Post ' for state
purposes — and it often happened — necessarily helped the
circulation of the paper.

' The Times ' also, of course, profited much by the
special information it obtained from official sources.
Though the fiscal reforms were of great benefit to it,
and though its circulation increased every year and its
income from advertisements was yet more augmented,
its political mfluence was being as much impaired by
the advent of new rivals and the growth of old ones as
the Cobdenites oi" the critics of ' The Saturday Review '
could hope for ; but it was still, and was long to continue,
a great authority, courted and feared by strong govern-
ments, and meekly or sullenly accepted as an infallible
instructor by a large section of the public. Its old
opposition to Lord Palmerston had nearly passed away,
and during Palmerston's two premierships, extending
with a brief interruption fi:om 1855 to 1865, it gave
him almost uniform support.

Towards Napoleon III. ' The Times ' was less
friendly, and in 1858, when Lord Derby was in
office, he had to ask Greville to use his influence with
Delane ' to get them to abstain from writing any more
irritating articles about France,' because, as Lord Derby
averred, ' these articles provoked the French to mad-
ness,' at a time when ' nothing but the utmost care and.
moderation on both sides enabled the two governments
to go on in harmony.' ^ But G-reville tells a curious
story showing how even the French emperor, when it
suited him, made use of ' The Times.' ' Persigny called

' Greville Memoirs (Third Part), vol. ii. pp. 1, 2.
^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 179.

1855-1861. 'THE MORNING POST' AND 'THE TIMES' 245

on Lord Jokn one day,' we read, ' and told Mm lie was
come in strict confidence to show him the letter which
the emperor had written to the king of Sardinia, but
which he must not mention even to his colleagues,
except of course to Palmerston. Lord John promised
he would not, and a day or two after he read the letter
in " The Times." He sent for Persigny and asked for
an explanation. Persigny said he could not explain
it, but would write to Walewski. John Russell also
wrote to Cowley, who spoke to Walewski about it.
Walewski declared he could not account for it, and that
it must have been sent from Turin, and he would write
to that court to complain of the indiscretion and would
also speak to the emperor. He went to the emperor,
told him what had passed, and showed him what he
proposed to write to Turin, when the emperor said,
" No, don't write at all ; take no notice of the publica-
tion. The fact is, I sent the letter myself to ' The
Tunes' ' correspondent ! " A most extraordinary pro-
ceeding,' Greville adds, ' and showing the extreme
difficulty of all diplomatic dealing between the two
governments. The emjjeror is by way of being in-
dignant with " The Times," and never fails to pour out
abuse of the paper to whomever he converses with.
He did so to Cobden, for instance, to whom he gave an
audience at Paris. But who can tell whether this is
not a pretence and a deceit, and whether he may not
all the time have a secret understanding with " The
Times " ? ' 1

The political connections of ' The Times ' gave it an
immense advantage over all the other newsf)apers. Its
ample resources, moreover, enabled it to spend a great
deal more money than any other journal had at com-
mand in paying for good work, whether done in London

^ OreviUe Memoirs (Third Part), vol. ii. pp. 273, 274.

246 THE MODERN REVOLUTION ch. xxi.

or elsewhere. Abraham Hayward and Vernon Har-
court were two old writers on ' The Morning Chronicle '
who were glad to contribute to ' The Times,' while, at
the same time, they were writing for its angry critic,
' The Saturday Review ' ; and scores of other able men,
professed journalists and competent amateurs, were on
its staff. The enterprise that had been so useful in
procuring William Howard Russell's letters concerning
the Crimean War was continued on all occasions, and
Russell himself was employed as a special correspondent
respecting grand spectacles like the coronation of the
Tzar Nicholas at Moscow in 1856, and momentous
catastrophes lilce the Indian Mutiny. It was George
Wingrove Cooke who acted as special correspondent
for ' The Times ' duriiag the Chinese War of 1857, the
account of which was reprinted under the title of ' China
and Lower Bengal ; ' another work, ' Conquest and
Civilisation in Northern Africa,' being made up of
letters written by him during a mission to Algeria. The
example set by ' The Times ' in such developments of
journalistic work as these was already being freely fol-
lowed by other papers ; but they had not yet contrived
to vie with it successfully.

All these and all such extensions of newspaper
enterprise were concurrent with, and partly incidental
to, the abolition of ' the taxes on knowledge' ; and nearly
every newspaper profited by the change, though not in
equal measure, and the public profited yet more. In
the weekly press, moreover, the revolution brought
about was in some respects quite as remarkable as m
the daily press.

' The weekly newspaper, whether sectional or general,'
as it was said in the preliminaiy announcement of ' The
Saturday Review,' ' aims at givuig a digest of aU the
news of the week, together with comments in the shape

1855-1861. 'THE SATURDAY REVIEW 247

of leading articles "which, from the nature of the case,
must be few in number, and either partial or perfunctory
in scope. What " The Saturday Review " proposes is
to make its speciality consist ia leading articles and
other origiaal matter.' As this writmg could be done
leisurely during the week, it undertook to offer ' more
measured statements and more deliberate thought' than
could be looked for in the work done hastily for the
daily papers, and at the same time it pointed out that
' its comparative frequency of publication wUl enable it
to occupy a position in the way of direct and immediate
usefuhiess which periodicals published at the rare inter-
vals of one month or three months necessarily fail to
maintain.' Most of its writers, it was added, ' who are
known to each other, and none of whom are unpractised
m periodical literatm'e, have been thrown together by
affinities naturally arising from common habits of
thought, education, reflection, and social views ' ; and
they proposed ' to address themselves to the educated
mind of the country, and to serious, thoughtful men of
all schools, classes, and principles, not so much in
the spirit of party as in the more philosophical attitude
of mutual counsel and friendly conflict of opinions.'
' In politics,' it was further said, ' " The Saturday
Review " is independent both of individual statesmen
and of worn-out pohtical sections ; in hterature, science,
and art, its conductors are entirely free from the in-
fluence or dictation of pecuniary or any other connec-
tions with trade, party, chque, or section.' And, in token
of their independence, it was notified that ' the con-
ductors decline to receive books, prmts, &c., gratuitously
for review,' and ' will provide for themselves the works
which they may select for criticism.' ^

There was some arrogance, or bumptiousness, in
' Saturday Review, November 3, 1855.

248 THE MODERN EEVOLUTION ch. xxi.

these declarations, and all the promises were not kept ;
but the first number of ' The Saturday Review,' giving
six articles on pohtical or other concerns of the day, three
short essays of a more miscellaneous sort, and five reviews
of books, was a striking production, and the plan was
fairly well adhered to after it was found expedient, at
the end of two years, to increase the size of the paper
so as to give, in about twenty pages, about twenty
articles of various sorts every week, the price being
raised from fivepence to sixpence. There was no lack of
energy in its management, its chief originator, A. J. B.
Beresford Hope, being also one of its contributors under
its able editor ; and among other contributors, besides
Abraham Hayward and Vernon Harcourt, being Edward
Alfred Freeman, George Smythe, who died as Lord
Strangford, and Lord Robert Cecil, who became Lord
Sahsbury ; to whom were added, somewhat later, James
Fitzjames Stephen, Henry Maine, John Morley, and
many more. No collection of writing so thoughtful,
vigorous, or diversified, was at that time given in any
other weekly paper, and ' The Saturday Review,' speedily
winning favour among a large body of readers, not only
exerted a very considerable iafluence upon them, and,
through them, upon a much larger circle, but also,
coinciding with other iafluences, had very marked eflfect
upon weekly journalism as a whole.

' The Examiner,' nearly half a century before, had
begun as bravely, and, to say the least, with as high
purpose, as ' The Saturday Review ; ' but ' The Exa-
miner' had scarcely moved with the times. Leigh
Hunt had done splendid work in it, excellent on political
and on literary grounds, during more than one decade ;
and Albany Fonblanque, during much more than an-
other decade, had revived and carried on that work, on
somewhat different lines, but with equal earnestness

1855-1861. 'THE EXAMINER ' AND ' THE SPECTATOR ' 249

and honesty, and more pungent wit. Fonblanque,
however, had been made chief of the statistical depart-
ment of the Board of Trade by Lord John Russell in
1849, and, though still writing often for ' The Exa-
miner ' witli much of his old fire, was to some extent
associated with one of the ' worn-out pohtical sections '
at wliich ' The Saturday Review ' sneered ; and John
Forster, his successor in the editorship, was, with all
his literary tastes and political sympathies, a man of
uncertam mood. Neither he nor Fonblanque was in-
clined to face the opposition of ' The Saturday Review '
by reconstructing ' The Examiner ' as an outspoken and
comprehensive exponent of later Radicalism. Though
Forster had a staif of brilliant and trenchant "waiters
imder him, including Eyre Evans Crowe, Edwin Chad-
wick, Torrens McCullagh, and Henry Moiiey, who
before long took Forster's place as editor, there was
small room for their work in the old-fashioned sheet, of
which only two or three pages were spared for original
articles, and the rest was occupied by Dudley Costello,
the sub- editor, with extracts of news fi.'om the daily
papers. ' The Examiner ' was allowed to fall behind in
the race for which new conditions were prescribed by
' The Saturday Review.'

' The Spectator ' was more enterprising. From its
commencement, Rintoul had provided in it so much
space for original writing, and had been so careful as
to the selection and condensation of news, that its
assimilation to ' The Saturday Review,' in outward
form and general scope, was comparatively easy. The
paper had of necessity aged somewhat with the man
during the thirty years of his editorship and ownership ;
but after his death, on April 22, 1858,^ ' The Spectator'
fortunately passed mto hands well able to manage it.

' Spectator, May 1, 1858.

250 THE MODERN KEVOLUTION ch. xxi.

Meredith Townsend brought to his task considerable
experience as a travelled politician and business apti-
tude controlled by high principle, and when he was
joined by Richard Holt Hutton, a deep thinker and
polished writer, an altogether suitable partnership was
established for making ' The Spectator ' a formidable
critic and an active guide of public opinion. Narrower
in its range than ' The Saturday Review,' and more
systematic in its aims, it was a consistent teacher and
advocate of views in politics, religion, philosophy, and
literature not more different than the lapse of a genera-
tion almost necessitated from the views and aims which
Rintoul had propounded as the friend and disciple of
men like George Grote and Joseph Hume.

The influence of ' The Saturday Review ' was shown
in many other weekly papers which need here be only
named, or not even named. Stich papers as ' The
Guardian ' and ' The Athenaeum ' were unproved in
quality, and thereby both the proprietors and the public
gained. Others, like ' The Leader,' started by George
Henry Lewes in 1849,^ and ' The Press,' favoured by
Benjamin Disraeli, were hastened towards decay and
death. Others, like ' The London Review,' commenced
by Charles Mackay in 1860,^ with Lawrence Oliphant
for one of his partners, attempted to vie with the already
mighty autocrat of Southampton Street, and soon found
their efforts futile.

The passing of the Newspaper Stamp Act, and the

' In 1859, 'talking of The Leader to Lewes, Carlyle asked, "When
will those papers on Positivism come to an end?" "I can assure you
they are making a great impression at Oxford," says Lewes. " Ah ! I
never look at them ; it's so much blank paper to me. I looked into
Comte once ; found him to be one of those men who go up in a balloon
and take a lighted candle to look at the stars." ' — Arme Oilchrist : her
Life and Writings, p. 72.

^ Mackay, Through tlie Long Day, vol. ii. pp. 201-212.

1855-1861. OTHER WEEKLY PAPERS 251

prospect of a speedy removal of the paper duty, led to
a great many fresh experitnents in weekly journalism
which, if most of them were disastrous so far as the
projectors were concerned, encouraged or compelled by
their competition much advance in those journals which
were strong enough to hve and thrive. So it was
especially in the case of ' The Illustrated London News,'
to which, on account both of its large size and of its
large cii'culation, the withdrawal of the fiscal burdens
was of exceptional advantage. In opposition to it
were started ' The Pictorial Times,' ' Pen and PencU,'
' The Coloured News,' and several more, besides ' The
Illustrated Times ' ; but of these only the last-named,
swallowing up some of the others, obtained any hold on
the public.

' The Illustrated Times ' was begun on June 9, 1855,
six days before the Newspaper Stamp Bill became law,
with David Bogue for its proprietor and Henry VizeteUj'^
for its editor ; and was interesting, not only on account
of its clever pictures, but also because m it what was
almost a new line of jom-naUsm was opened up by a
young and afterwards famous journalist. With the
third number Edmund Yates commenced a weekly
article entitled ' The Lounger at the Clubs.' ' For six
or seven years,' he says, ' I kept up a continuous com-
ment on the social, Hterary, and dramatic events of the
day, and it was, I beUeve, Mr. VizeteUy's opinion that
my flippant nonsense did as much for the paper as the
deeper and drier wisdom of the day.' Yates was in
good company. ' Many of the rising men of the day,'
he adds, ' George Sala, Robert Brough, James Hannay,
Frederick Greenwood, Sutherland Edwards, Augustus
Mayhew, Edward Draper, were on the statF of the
little paper, which did well — so well that the proprietor
of its big predecessor found it necessary to purchase

252 THE MODERN REVOLUTION ch. xxi.

it, and thenceforward let it fly with partially clipped
wings.' ^

The weekly papers that gave pictures, such as ' The
Illustrated Londoii News' and its rivals, the weekly
papers that gave jokes, among which ' Punch ' had no
rival worth mentioning, and some others with special
aims — among which 'The Field,' started in 1853 by
Horace Cox, ' The City Press,' started in 1857, ' The
Army and Navy Gazette,' projected by William Howard
Russell, and ' The National Reformer,' projected by
Charles Bradlaugh, both in 1860, were particularly note-
worthy in their several departments — held intermediate
place between the papers claiming to be solely critical,
with ' The Saturday Review ' now at their head, and
the papers intended to be chiefly if not exclusi\?ely
newspapers, according to the narrower meaning of the
word. Among these latter the effects of the fiscal
reforms of the period we are now considering were
very remarkable. Hardly any paper of the least im-
portance, except those which were merely advertise-
ment sheets or strictly trade organs, has, of course,
been published during the last two centuries, which
has offered nothing but news to its readers, and even
the huitiblest journals have done something to in-
fluence public or local opinion, not only by their bare
statement of facts, but by their modes of stating them,
and by their few or many comments thereon. Even the
humblest, too, were influenced, and more or less im-
proved, by the growing demand for instruction which
caused the abohtion of ' the taxes on knowledge,' and
by such example as was set by ' The Saturday Review.'
More comment or criticism than heretofore was given,
or attempted, along with the bald recital of events, in
nearly every newspaper. A great cleavage began, how-

' Yates, BecoUections and Experiences, vol. i. p. 278.

1855-1861. CHANGES IN NEWSPAPERS 253

ever, or was then first apparent, about the middle of
the nineteenth century, and it was very distinct before
the day when the paper duty was done away with.

The lowering of the cost of production, jjartly due
to legislative action, and partly to other causes which
will presently be referred to, and also the increasing
demand of the public for newspapers along with other
sorts of hterature, brought gi-eat advantage to almost
all newspapers. With its expenses lowered, even if its
circulation was not mcreased, eveiy journal not driven
out of the field by the quickening competition, was a
better commercial property after 1855, and yet more
after 1861, than it had been before ; and many proprie-
tors were satisfied with this. But the more intelligent
portion of the pubUc were not satisfied. If our grand-
fathers and great-grandfathers were perforce content to
pay fivepence or sixpence, or it might be eightj)ence or
tenpence, for a small news sheet, of which, say, half was
actual news, one fourth advertisements, and the remain-
ing fourth more or less forcible original writing, our
fathers had some reason for grumbling if the same sort
of provision, or even a little more, on a larger sheet, but
in the same proportion, was oflTered to them with a
reduction of only a penny or so on the old price. Cheap
jjapers were wanted ; and, especially as the want was
met by enterprising caterers, the caterers without enter-
prise, though they might not be ruined, and might even
find their profits somewhat enhanced, were at a dis-
advantage in comparison with their bolder rivals.
Hence we find that papers of great repute in former
days, like ' The Examiner ' and ' The Weekly Dispatch,'
running in the old grooves, and charging fivepence for
the unstamped sheet instead of sixpence for the stamped
sheet, were eclipsed by papers like ' Lloyd's Newspaper,'
which gave nearly as much news and comments for a

254 THE MODERN REVOLUTION ch. xxi.

penny. Eeaders who could aiford to pay fivepence or
sixpence for a weekly paper preferred, especially as they
could now get news from the daily penny papers, to
buy ' The Saturday Review ' or ' The Spectator,' with
its ample supply of original writing. Those whose
means were scantier, or who knew the value of money,
bought ' Lloyd's.'

The circulation of ' Lloyd's Newspaper ' exceeded
100,000 for the week in which it reported- the death and
funeral of the Duke of Wellington, and in 1853, when
it was ten years old, its average sale was about 90,000.
The abolition of the advertisement tax in that year
nearly doubled its receipts from advertisers, and enabled
its energetic proprietor to improve the quality of his
paper. Of much greater importance, however, was the
abolition of the compulsory stamp which reduced the
price for all who did not receive their copies by post —
these, in the case of publications like ' Lloyd's,' being
the great majority of customers — from threepence to
twopence. The sale increased so rapidly that it
amounted to 170,000 in September 1861, when, antici-
pating by a few weeks the abolition of the paper duty,
Lloyd reduced the price to a penny. This bold step
involved serious risk and much present loss of monev,
and, as it also halved the profits of the newsvendors
on each copy they sold, it was angrily condemned by
them. It was persisted in, however, and as a conse-
quence the circulation had risen to nearly 350,000 in
1863, a number which was added to in nearly every
succeeding year.

It was to meet this unparalleled demand that in
1855 liloyd opened negotiations with Hoe & Company,
the inventors of rotary printing machines in New York
and he was the first in England to make use of their
appliances for rapid printing, these being improved and

1865-1861. IMPROVED MECHANICAL APPLIANCES 255

adapted to meet the special requirements of the Sahsbury
Court establishment. The Walter press, introduced
in ' The Times ' office in 1856, was suggested by Lloyd's
innovation, and to his eager adoption of other expe-
dients for facihtating the work of printing and distri-
buting newspapers by hundreds of thousands, his rivals
and compeers are largely indebted. K the process of
type-setting still in vogue shows little advance on the
arrangements of our ancestors, all its sequels, as in
stereotyi^ing, ' machining,' counting and folding the
copies issued from the press, and so forth, have been
elaborated and modified to a wonderful extent in answer
to the demand for prompt supply of newspapers in quan-
tities and varieties that our ancestors never dreamt of.

These mechanical appliances were the direct out-
come of the growth in the newspaper trade. Others,
quite as helpful, were the causes rather than the con-
sequences of further growth. The construction of rail-
ways was of immense service alike in the collection and
in the distribution both of news and of newspapers.
The electric telegraph proved yet more useful as an
agent for collecting and distributing news, though
newspapers could not be conveyed by it. The changes
thus brought about, or conduced to, first by the one
agency and then by the other, were very noteworthy,
and to them quite as much as to the fiscal reforms of
the sixth decade of the nineteenth century must be
attributed the remarkable development of newspaper
enterprise during this period.

The earliest eiFect of railways upon newspaj^er
enterprise appeared in the speedier, cheaper, and safer
reporting to the London offices of occurrences in the
pro\Tnces and more distant parts. During the first
years of Queen Victoria's reign the metropolitan
journals were able to publish much fuller and more

256 THE MODERN "REVOLUTION oh. xxi.

varied accounts of recent events than liad before been
possible. Londoners were supplied at breakfast time
with news as to anything of importance that had hap-
pened but a few hours before in Bristol or York, and
there was corresponding improvement in the speedy-
bringing to them of news not merely from Paris or
Berlin, but from India and China. The railways, helped
by steam packets and other means of conveyance, which
enabled the London newspapers to publish all this
intelligence, were equally serviceable in carrying the
London newspapers to country towns, and in this way,
while the country papers, at that time rarely published
more than once a week, were made more readable for
those who received them at the week's end, there was
much more advantage for the London daUy papers in
that they could be delivered in all parts of England
before night-time. The country papers gained much
by railways, and by the general social advancement in
which railways played a part, but for a long while after
they had begun to acquire fresh dignity and influence,
they were chiefly important as retailers of such local
news and promoters of such local interests as the
London papers hardly concerned themselves with.
Even the best of them were strictly local papers, giving
outside news only at second hand, and debarred from
discussing general questions till some time after those
questions had been discussed by the London papers
and the London discussions had been brought within
reach of their readers. Beneficial as they were in so
many respects, the railways by themselves hindered
quite as much as they assisted the development of
country newspapers.

This state of things was altered, and in time almost
reversed, by the electric telegraph. WhUe to the
London papers it was of vast benefit that they were

1855-1861. GROWTH OF COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS 257

able to obtain in a few minutes news whicb had hitherto
occupied as many hours, and in the case of remote
places as many days, in reaching them, they lost their
old advantage of being the first retailers of general news
in the country towns. That news, or so much of it as
was cared for, could now travel down by telegraph,
■whereas at best the London newspapers could only
travel by train, and though the expenses of transmission,
the comparative poverty of the country newspapers,
and other circumstances retarded the change, a complete
revolution in provincial journalism began almost with
the second half of the present century.

There were influential' country newspapers, with
able editors and writers employed on them, before the
century began, and others followed, as has been briefly
noted in an earlier chapter ; but no daily paper was
published in England, and out of London, until the
year in which the Newspaper Stamp Act was passed.
Manchester led the way. In 1855 its ' Guardian,' in
which, from its starting as a weekly paper in 1821,
Archibald Prentice had propounded sound Radicalism,
and in which, before 1835, Cobden had written boldly
on the need of corn law reform,^ was converted into a
daily paper ; and in the same year ' The Manchester
Examiner,' dating from 1846, and now more Radical
than its compeer, was also enlarged. In 1855, moreover,
' The Liverpool Daily Post ' and ' The Sheffield Daily
Telegraph ' were commenced, and in Edinburgh ' The
Scotsman,' which had flourished as a weekly since
1817, began to be issued daily. ' The Liverpool
Mercury,' bom in 1811, and ' The Birmingham Daily
Post,' a new paper, followed in 1857 ; and in 1858 two
other famous weeklies, ' The Newcastle Chronicle,' dating
from 1764, and ' The Glasgow Herald,' dating from

^ Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn-law League.
VOL. II. S

258 THE MODERN REVOLUTION oh. xxi-

1782, were reshaped. Those nine, all of them Radical,
were the only provincial English and Scotch daily
papers before 1860. Ireland, however, had several ;
nearly all of which were Conservative, the only important
exceptions beiag the venerable ' Freeman's Journal,'
and ' The Belfast Northern Whig,' which, a weekly since
1824, was expanded ui 1857. In 1859 'The Irish
Times,' destined to be the most enterprising supporter
of Protestantism in the island, was established in. Dublin,
In Edinburgh the Conservatives ventured on expanding
their venerable ' Courant ' in 1860, and ' The Newcastle
Journal,' enlarged in 1861, was also Conservative.
' The Edinburgh Daily Eeview,' commenced in 1861,
and ' The Dundee Advertiser ' and ' The Leeds Mercury,'
both transformed in that year, were Liberal, as also was
' The Western Daily Mercury,' started at Plymouth in
1860, while the rival Plymouth paper of the same year,
' The Western Morning News,' undertook to be ' strictly
independent in matters of politics and religion.'

The last-named paper, though less influential than
some of the others, was interesting as the prelimmary
of a movement that was very important in the history
of country journalism. Its founders were William
Saunders and his brother-in-law Edward Spender, who
in 1863 organised the Central Press as an ingenious
device for lessening the cost and improving the quality
of provincial newspapers. Under this arrangement a
staff of London writers was employed in producing
from day to day summaries of English and foreign news,
trade and other reports, descriptive accounts of parlia-
mentary debates, ' London letters,' leading articles ' on
the latest topics of general interest,' careful compila-
tions of literary and religious intelligence,' and much else,
all of which were set in type and reproduced in stereo-
type coluiims to be sent down to the country editors,

1858-1863. THE CENTRAL PRESS AND REUTER 259

in order that they might select from the parcel so much
as they found suitable for their several papers.-^ By
this means much labour and expense -were aroided, the
compositors on the spot having only to deal with local
news, and the editors being spared the trouble of writing
about any but local concerns. It is evident, how-
ever, that the matter thus supplied, if more comprehen-
sive and accurate as regards facts than much that might
be put together by ill-informed or careless editors, had
of necessity to be colourless in its politics, and was only
adapted for a rude stage in journalistic progress. Re-
pudiated from the first by the more enterprising and
independent conductors of country newspapers, it was
very useful to less ambitious or less capable members
of the craft, and as such it was useful in its day. It
has, indeed, been continued and elaborated, by disciples
and rivals of the proprietors, down to the present time,
and is doubtless still a boon to many.

A more important and serviceable scheme of news-
paper co-operation was of earlier origin. In the autumn
■of 1858 Julius Renter, who since 1849 had been building
up a news-agency in Paris, proposed to the managers of
' The Times ' that in lieu of the costly reports received
by telegraph from its correspondents abroad, or by
way of supplement to those reports, they should take
from him the digests of foreign news which he was pre-
pared to collect fi-om all sources and to supply at mode-
rate terms to as many newspapers as accepted his help.
The offer was declined by the managers of ' The
Times,' but it was accepted by James Grant, of ' The
Morning Advertiser,' to whom overtures were next
made, and after that by several other managers.^ The
j-esult was the establishment of Renter's Agency, 30^.

1 William Hunt, Tlien and Now, p. 73.

' James Grant, Newspaper Press, vol. ii. pp. 325-331.

8 2

260 THE MODERN REVOLUTION ch. xii.

a month being then paid by each subscriber in return
for the news supplied by the enterprising caterer. At
that time the means of telegraphic communication
between England and other parts of the world were
scanty, and much of the news had to be obtained
through slower channels. Renter's Agency was ably
conducted from the first, however, and proving of great
convenience to the few journals that then availed them-
selves of it, it has been steadily and rapidly developed
until it has become almost as necessary a part of
newspaper machinery as the electric telegraph itself.
Enabling even those papers which can afford to obtain
special information from their own representatives
abroad to supply much information that would not
otherwise reach them, it has been of far more value to
the less wealthy papers which are chiefly dependent
upon it and on their more prosperous neighbours for
intelligence from places outside of England. This
remarkable institution would not have been possible
were it not for the impetus given to journalism by the
removal of fiscal restraints, the increasing demand of
the public for newspapers, and the mechanical appliances
that have been brought into use, but it has helped
materially to strengthen the forces that produced it.

261

CHAPTER XXII.

TWELVE YEARS OE PROGRESS.
1862—1874.

The abolition of the paper duty, followed by several
postal reforms, changes in the law of libel, and other
legislative and executive arrangements which, whether
so designed or not, were aU helpful to the growth of
newspapers in numbers, size, and varieties of style and
purport, render the period since 1861 in some respects
more important and interesting in the history of
journalism than any portion of the preceding two
hundred and forty years. A detailed account of this
eventful period, however, would necessarily include much
with which many readers are already familiar. In such
an account also, more would have to be said about men
still living, and about political, social, and personal
enterprises stUl in progress than falls within the scheme
of the present work. It may suffice, therefore, here to
gather up and group together only the most significant
of the facts and the most instructive of the inferences
from them which are furnished by the record of the past
quarter of a century. The nature, though not the com-
plete process, of the remarkable expansions, variations,
and innovations that have occurred since 1861 can be
briefly sketched.

In 1862, and during many later years, ' The Times'
stUl held its ground as the great potentate in the press

262 TWELVE ^EAES OF PROGRESS ch. xxn,

world with an authority that was more and more dis-
puted, but was not yet seriously weakened. Its old
quarrel with Lord Palmerston had been abandoned, from
conviction or from motives of expediency, and, Lord
Palmerston being, till his death in 1865, the special
favourite of the strongest party or aggregate of parties
in the nation, ' The Times ' was in most respects his
zealous supporter. ' Lord Palmerston,' as it said in
contrasting him with Disraeli, ' represents the precise
state of the national mind in opposing unnecessary
changes without setting up resistance as a principle,
and in countenancing all foreign approximations to the
political theories and system of England. It is a minor
merit that in all party skirmishes he opposes consum-
mate tact to his opponent's versatile ingenuity.' ^

' The Times ' and Palmerston undertook to manage
aU the domestic affairs of England, to control all
its foreign relations, and to dictate to the rest of the
world ; and their temper was conspicuously shown in
their attitude towards what was on some accounts the
supremely important movement then on foot. The
secession war in the United States involved ques-
tions both of national rights and liberties, and of
the rights and liberties of individuals and classes
bound together by national interests, which were of
universal concern, and with which Englishmen, as kuis-
men of the Americans, and also by reason of the con-
nections between, as they then were, the great cotton-
producing country and the great cotton-manufacturing
country, were especially concerned. ' The Times ' took
the lead among newspapers in supporting the southern
rebels, just as among politicians the same views were
held not only by Palmerston but by Lord John Russell,
Gladstone, and many others whose sympathies were

' Times, December 31, 18C1.

1862-1«65. 'THE TIMES' AND THE SECESSION WAR 263

supposed to be less aristocratic and tyrannical than
Palmerston's. So strong was its partisanship that,
haviQg sent William Howard Russell to follow the war
as its special correspondent, it recalled him for having
ventured, in describing the battle of Bull's Run, to
express opinions of his own which were not those of
his employers. In New York it had a more docile
correspondent in Charles Mackay, who thence instructed
English readers in disparagement of the northern
politicians from February 1862 till the close of 1865,
except that during some months he had as a substitute
Antonio Gallenga, the Anglicised Italian who was a
zealous servant of ' The Times ' throughout nearly a
quarter of a century.^ Special correspondents had by

' Dr. Mackay gives an amusing illustration of the way in which, in
this case by accident, his anti-Northern statements were emphasised by
Delane. ' Among the most violent of the onslaughts made upon me by
the ultra- republican and abolitionist press,' he says, ' was one brought on
my innocent head by an unfortunate alteration made in the proof-sheet of
one of my letters to The Times. Writing of the frequent battles between
the brave Confederates and the equally brave Federals, I stated that the
results of these sanguinary engagements in no wise helped to bring the
war to a conclusion, and that in fact " they proved nothing but the
courage of the combatants on either side." This passage was queried
by the proof-reader, and so brought to the editor's notice, and, mis-
interpreting my meaning, he changed the word "nothing" into
"anything." When the copy of The Times containing this unlucky
alteration arrived in New York the vials of wrath were opened
against me by The Herald and other papers of anti-English politics,
of which there were very many during the war. ... I was de-
nounced in the most violent terms for accusing the Americans, both
of the North and of the South, of cowardice, though nothing was
farther from my intention. The Herald went so far as to hint that it
might be a just punishment for the libel of which I had been guilty to
burn my house over my head. ... 1 afterwards learned that there was
great joy in The Times printing office, and in the sub-editor's room, and
among all the officials who had been called to account for the foolish,
though not ill-meant, tampering with my " copy," when the delinquency
was traced to the great Jupiter Tonans himself, who, in a moment of
confusion, forgetfulness, or perhaps of sleepiness, had taken it upon him-
self to set me wrong when thinking to set me right.' — {Through the Long

264 TWELVE TEARS OF PROGRESS ch. xxii.

this time come to be employed by all the influential
papers, but ' The Times ' stood alone in obtaining from
William Vernon Harcourt the articles on 'the inter-
national doctrine of recognition, on the part of foreign
governments, of insurgent communities,' on ' the perils
of intervention,' on ' the law of blockade,' on ' the
Foreign Enlistment Act,' 'on the right of search,' and
on the other bearings of the ' Trent ' affair, which were
republished in 1863 as ' Letters of Historicus on some
Questions of International Law.'

The old feud between ' The Times ' and the Cob-
denites was intensified by their advocacy of rival views
as to the merits of the civil war in the United States ;
but there was hardly any question, great or small, in
home or foreign politics, on which the opposite principles
that prompted them did not set them at variance when-
ever controversy arose. An instance occurred in 1863,
when Cobden, speaking at Rochdale on November 24
on the need of land law reform, said : ' With regard to
some things in foreign countries we don't compare
favourably. You have no other peasantry like that of
England — you have no other country in which it is
entirely divorced from the land. I don't want any
revolution or agrarian outrages by which we should
change all this ; but this I find to be quite consistent
with human nature, that wherever I go the condition of
the people is generally pretty good, in comparison with

Day, vol. ii. p. 226). Dr. Mackay says (vol. ii. p. 272.) : 'I learned from
an intimate friend of Mr. Seward, that the secretary of state was willing
to bestow a liberal proportion of secret service money upon me if I would
zealously support the cause of the North in The Times, and, as he said,
" make my fortune " ' ; but as he adds that ' the proposition was never
formally made,' we may assume that his information was incorrect.
During his stay in New York Dr. Mackay contrived to obtain the par-
ticulars as to the rules and objects of the then young Fenian organisation
which, when published in The Times, caused no little commotion. —
Through the Long Day, vol. ii. p. 230.

1863. COBDEN'S QUARREL WITH DELANE 265

the power they have to take care of themselves, and if
you have a class entirely divorced from poHtical power,
and there is another country where they possess it, the
latter will be treated there with more consideration,
they will have greater advantages, they will be better
educated, and have a better chance of holding property,
than in a country where they are deprived of the advan-
tage of pohtical power.' ^ Bright spoke to the same effect.
' If we were fairly represented,' he said, ' feudaUsm with
regard to the land of England would perish, and the
agricultural labourer throughout the United Kingdom
would be redeemed from that poverty and serfdom
which, up to this time, have been his lot. With laws
such as we have, which are intended to bring vast tracts
of land into the possession of one man, that one man
may exercise great pohtical power — this system is a
curse to the country, and dooms the agricultural
labourer to perpetual poverty and degradation.'^

These mild utterances aroused the wrath of ' The
Times.' ' This language,' it said, ' so often repeated,
and so calculated to excite discontent among the poor
and half-informed, has really only one mteUigible
meaning : " Reduce the electoral franchise ; for when
you have done so you will obtain an assembly which
will seize on the estates of the proprietors of the land
and divide them gratuitously among the poor." ' ^ And
a week later ' The Times ' repeated the calumny in a
reference to ' the satisfaction with which the poor might
regard Mr. Bright's proposition for a division among
them of the lands of the rich.' * An angry and
memorable correspondence between Cobden and Delane

' Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, by Richard Cobden, vol. ii.
p. 116.

^ George Bamett Smith, Life of John Bright, vol. ii. p. 118.

' Times, November 26, 1863. * Ibid., December 3, 1863.

266 TWELVE YEARS OF PROGRESS ch. xxii.

followed on the publication of these strictures, the-
first of which, attacking himself as well as Bright, was
only seen by Cobden after he had written to protest
against the slandering of his friend in the second.

On December 4 Cobden addressed to the editor of
' The Times ' a letter so rudely worded that he could
hardly have expected it to be inserted. The insinuation
against Bright he said was ' a groundless and gratuitous
falsehood,' and ' a foul libel,' but at the same time only
a specimen of the ' too habitual mode of dealing, not
merely with individuals, but with the interests of
society' which was characteristic of ' The Times ' and
its editor. ' A tone of pre-eminent unscrupulousness
in the discussion of political questions, a contempt for
the rights and feelings of others, and a shameless dis-
regard of the claims of consistency and sincerity on the
part of its writers,' he added, ' have long been recognised
as the distinguishing characteristics of " The Times,"
and placed it in marked contrast with the rest of the
periodical press.' That very intemperate letter was
returned on December 7 with a note from ' the editor ^
suggesting that ' Mr. Cobden had no right to expect,
him, upon a pretext entirely irrelevant, to publish a
series of most offensive and unfounded imputations upon
himself and his friends.' But Delane weakened his case
by proceeding to offer a very lame excuse for the attacks-
complained of by Cobden ; and he unwarily wrote at
the close, ' Perhaps the editor is mistaken in supposing-
that Mr. Cobden desires the publication of his letter.
If, however, he should think that it conduces either to
his own interest or to the injury of " The Times," he
can probably find some more appropriate organ than
" The Times " itself.' 1

' Correspondence between Mr. Cobden, M.F., and Mr. Delane, Editor
of ' The Times ' (Manchester, 1864), pp. 2-4.

1863. COBDEN'S QUARREL WITH DELAKE 267

Cobden took Delane at his word. His indignant
protest was printed in ' The Daily News ' and ' The
Morning Star,' Thornton Hunt declining to copy it into
' The Daily Telegraph.' More than that, it was followed
by another letter, dated December 9, in which Cobden,
addressing Delane by name, made further and yet
angrier complaint as to the way in which he and Bright
had been treated. ' You and I,' he wrote, ' have been
long personally acquainted. Your handwriting is
known to me, and I know you to be the chief editor
of " The Times." Under such circumstances I cannot
allow you to suppress your individuality, and shelter
yourself under the third person of the editorial nomina-
tive in a correspondence aifecting your personal respon-
sibility for a scandalous aspersion on myself (as I now
learn for the first time from you) as well as on Mr.
Bright.' Thereupon he accused Delane and ' The Times '
of having persistently attacked him and the views he held
during many years, and gave ample proof of the injustice
that had been done to him, though in terms so violent
as to greatly weaken the force of the indictment, ' It
has been the fate of" The Times," ' he said in conclusion,
' to help forward every cause it has opposed. By its
truculent, I had almost said ruffianly, attacks on every
movement while in the weakness of infancy, it has
roused to increased efforts the energies of those it
assailed, whUe at the same time it has awakened the
attention of a languid pubHc, and attracted the sympathy
of fair and manly minds. It is thus that such public
measures as the abolition of the corn-laws, the repeal of
the taxes on knowledge, and the negotiation of the
treaty with France triumphed in spite of its virulent,
pertinacious, and unscrupulous opposition, until at last
I am tending to the conviction that there are three
conditions only requisite for the success of any great

268 TWELVE YEARS OP PROGRESS ch. xxii.

project of reform, namely, a good cause, persevering
advocates, and the hostility of " The Times." ' ^

The letters that followed, two on each side, are un-
pleasant reading. Delane could not, or would not,
justify his conduct or that of ' The Times,' and he was
no match for Cobden in scornful abuse. Cobden in-
curred just blame for the offensive way in which he
punished his adversary ; but it was not undeserved
punishment, and ' The Times ' suffered much in reputa-
tion, not merely among Eadicals, but among many who
opposed them.

Speakingat Birmingham on January 26, 1864, Bright
summed up the history of the squabble, and drew his
conclusions from it. ' This,' he said of Delane, ' is the
gentleman who professes to counsel and lead the nation.
Now, suppose he had charged Adam Smith, the great
apostle of political economy, with approving piracy, or if
he had charged John Wesley with being an encourager of
drunkenness and profanity, would it have been more ex-
traordinary than that he should charge Mr. Cobden and
myself with instigating agrarian outrages and the seizure
of the estates of those who now hold them, for the pur-
pose of dividing them among the people, of course taking
nothing from the people for them, and therefore giving
nothing to the rich for them ? If there be two men in
England, I will undertake to say, who have more con-
scientiously and more faithfully than others preached
for twenty-five years the doctrine of absolute honesty
with regard to political questions in England, those two
men are Mr. Cobden and myself. But Mr. Cobden
came forward to assail Mr. Delane when he made this
charge against me. He found a man in a mask endea-
vouring to stab me in the back — for he had not seen that
the same man had been, in a previous article, also

^ Gorrespoiidence, &o., pp. 6-9.

1864. JOHN BRIGHT ON DELANE. 269

stabbing him — and he came forward and dragged his
mask from him, and he showed him to the gaze of the
whole nation and of the world. And at last, after
denial and equivocation of every kind, this unmasked
editor of this great journal was obliged to retire from
the personal part of this controversy, and to skulk
back into his anonymous hiding-place, which suits him
better.' ^

There was too much personality in this quarrel, and
its occasion was comparatively trivial ; but great ques-
tions were involved in it, and neither the political causes
to which ' The Times ' devoted itself, nor its immediate
interests as the would-be autocrat of the newspaper
world, gained anything by Cobden's death in April 1865.
In the following October Palmerston also died, and Cob-
denite influences were to survive with more strength
and permanence than Palmerstonian influences. The
rising statesmen were Disraeli, with whose Toryism
' The Times ' was less in harmony than with Palmer-
ston's views, which were really more Tory than any-
thing else, and Gladstone, who, though chancellor of
the exchequer under Palraerston since 1859, was
destined to work out Cobden's policy far more than
Palmerston's, and with whom, therefore, ' The Times '
was by no means in accord.

At this stage, however, ' The Times ' could not but
recognise Griadstone's great talents and prospective
authority, in other besides financial matters. When,
at the general election in 1865, Gladstone lost his
Oxford seat, ' The Times ' said : ' The enemies of the
university will make the most of her disgrace. It has
hitherto been supposed that a learned constituency was
to some extent exempt from the vulgar motives of party

' Speechen on Questions of Public PoUcy, hy John Bright, vol. ii. p. 338.

270 TWELVE YEARS OF PROGRESS ch. xiii.

spirit, and capable of forming a higher estimate of
statesmanship than common tradesmen or tenant-
farmers. It will now stand on record that they have
deliberately sacrificed a representative who combined
the very highest qualifications, moral and intellectual,
for an academical seat, to party spirit, and party spirit
- alone. Mr. Gladstone's brilliant public career, his great
academical distinctions and literary attainments, his
very subtlety and sympathy with ideas for their own
sake, mark him out beyond all living men for such a
position. Henceforth Mr. Gladstone will belong to the
country, but no longer to the university. Those Ox-
ford influences and traditions which have so deeply
coloured his views and so deeply interfered with his
better judgment, must gradually lose their hold on him.' ^
In the years of party disintegration and reconstruc-
tion consequent on Lord Palmerston's death — durino-
which, after Lord John Russell's short continuance of
his colleague's ministry, Lord Derby took office in
June 1866, to be followed, on his death, by Disraeli in
February 1868, and after December 1868, when Glad-
stone first had charge of a government of his own

' The Times ' steadily lost ground. The Tories now
had a satisfactory champion in ' The Standard,' in which
Lord Robert Cecil sometimes wrote, as well as other
recognised captains of the party to whom Disraeli's
supremacy was still distasteful ; and ' The Morning
Post ' was rising in favour with some. By the youno-er
school of Palmerstonians ' The Daily Telegraph ' was
heartily approved, and its vigorous and versatile writ-
ing, if ridiculed by ' Saturday Review ' critics and others,
had already secured for it a far larger circulation than
any other daily paper could boast of. Edwin Arnold,
George Augustus Sala, and their associates knew well

' Times, July 19, 1865.

1866-1870. THE RIVALS OF 'THE TIMES' 271

how to cater for their huge public. By judicious se-
lection and clever condensation, moreover, the con-
ductors of ' The Telegraph ' contrived to give, in less
space than ' The Times,' a more acceptable account of
■each day's occurrences, and it vied with its oldest and
wealthiest contemporaries in the variety and fulness of
the news brought from abroad. Felix Whitehurst,
who was its Paris correspondent between 1864 and
1870, was a typical writer of the ' Telegraph ' stamp,^
-and he was but one among many. Zealous in advocacy
of its own sort of Liberalism, as well as ia its supplying
of such news as a large part of the public most cared for,
' The Daily Telegraph ' was the most formidable oppo-
nent of ' The Times,' and far more successful than
either ' The Daily News,' which was Liberal without
being Radical, and ' The Morning Star,' which was un-
•mistakably Radical.

' The Morning Star ' suffered for its honesty, and
for the persistency with which it uttered opinions that
were not then popular. An effort was made to give
lightness and variety to its contents, especially by the
admission of Edmund Yates's articles, some entitled
^ The Flaneur,' and others of a miscellaneous sort,
while, in ' The Evening Star,' appeared his ' Readings
by StarHght ' ; and there was no lack of more serious
writing by able men. Besides Samuel Lucas, its staff
included Justin McCarthy, who succeeded Lucas as
editor, John Morley, who succeeded McCarthy, Edward
Richard Russell, who afterwards became editor of ' The
Liverpool Daily Post,' Charles Cooper, who afterwards
became editor of ' The Scotsman,' and several others.
But at no time, it is said, did the joint circulation of

' Whitehvirst's Court and Social Life in Pa/ris under Napoleon III.
made Tip of his letters in The Daily Telegraph and The Pioneer, is still a
very amusing book.

272 TWELVE YEARS OF PROGRESS cf. xxn.

both the morning and the afternoon papers exceed
15,000 a day, and this had sunk down to about 5,000
before October 13, 1869, when ' The Evening Star '
was abandoned and ' The Morning Star ' was absorbed
in ' The Daily News.' In saying farewell to his readers
the editor assured them that ' The Morninof Star ' had
achieved two objects since its commencement thirteen
years before. ' One of these was the advocacy and
propagation of political principles which were then
counted extreme in their Liberalism ; the other was to
establish the feasibility of providing journalism of the
best sort under what were then the untried conditions
of a penny newspaper.' ^

The death of ' The Morning Star ' was hastened, if

not caused altogether, by the lowering of the price of

' The Daily News ' from threepence, which had been

the charge made since 1861 as a poor compromise

between the old and the new rate, to a penny. This

change was made on June 8, 1868, and.Avas the prelude

to a rapid improvement in the fortunes of the paper.

In spite of its clever and forcible writing, and of Thomas

Walker's well-meaning editorship, ' The Daily News,'

not strong enough to compete with its high-priced

rivals, nor bold enough to appeal to the great mass of

readers who now declined to pay more than a penny

for a daily paper, had made but little progress for some

years past. None too soon, fresh life was put into it

when it became the property of Samuel Morley, Henry

Labouchere, Henry Oppenheim, Charles Reed, and

some others ; and when a new editor was found in

Prank Harrison Hill, who, having edited ' The Northern

Whig ' in Belfast since 1860, had settled in London as

assistant editor and principal leader writer on ' The

Daily News ' in 1866, contributing to it, among much

' Morning Star, October 13, 1869.

1866-1870. 'THE DAILY NEWS' AND 'THE DAY' 273

else, a trenchant series of ' Questions for a Reformed
Parliament' in 1867. Hill's responsible editorship
only began in 1870 ; but before that much had been
done to advance the paper, both by him and by John
R. Robinson, who, taking charge of ' The Express,' the
evening companion of ' The Daily News,' as far back as
1855, had in the interval rendered efficient help to both
journals. ' The Express ' was discontinued on April 30,
1869, on the plea that ' the publication of an evening
newspaper was found inconsistent with the arrange-
ments called for by the extending circulation of ' The
Daily News ' ; ^ and, as we shall see, those arrange-
ments were energetic and satisfactory in their results.

An interesting but unhappy experiment in jour-
nalism was made in 1867. On March 19 ' The Day '
appeared as a champion of enlightened Toryism. One
of its missions was to insist on the importance of adopt-
ing proportional representation in the new Reform Bill,
then being discussed in parliament. ' To give to every
class in this country its due share of representation
in the House of Commons, without at the same time
bestowing upon any of them a preponderance over all
the rest,' it insisted, ' is confessedly the great problem
of the present day.' ^ But, unfortunately, ' The Day,'
started with insufficient capital, only lived through
forty-one numbers. The last appeared on May 4.

A great alteration in the quality of evening journal-
ism had been commenced by the starting, on February
7, 1865, of ' The Pall Mall Gazette,' the venture of
George Smith, a member of the firm of Smith, Elder,
and Co., and at one time a principal proprietor of ' The
Daily News,' who found an efficient editor in Frederick
Greenwood, previously sub-editor of ' The Cornhill
Magazine ' under Thackeray. ' The Pall Mall Gazette,'

1 Express, April 30, 1869. ' The Day, March 19, 1867.

VOL. II. T

274 TWELVE YEAES OF PROGRESS ch. xxii.

though at first offering only eight pages for twopence,
was a bold attempt to realise Thackeray's fancy of a paper
' written by gentlemen for gentlemen,' and to give each
afternoon, along with a careful epitome of the morning's
news, two or three such articles on political and social
questions as had hitherto been rarely offered except in
' The Saturday Review ' or ' The Spectator.' Liberal
in the Palmerstonian sense, its solid articles were for-
cible, and lighter matter was supplied by smart writers,
among whom, for some time, Anthony Trollope was
conspicuous. The first number contained an article on
the morrow's opening of parliament, one of a supple-
mentary series of ' Friends in Council,' a lively ' Letter
from Sir Pitt Crawley on his entering Parliament,' and
a skit on ' Ladies at Law.' The early success of ' The
Pall MaU Gazette,' however, owed more to the sensa-
tional account of the experiences of ' an Amateur
Casual,' furnished by the editor's brother, James Green-
wood, than to any of its other contributions. Within
a month it was enlarged to twelve pages, and, though
an attempt then made to issue eight of its pages, con-
taiaing all the original matter, as ' a morning review,' in
addition to the 'evening review and newspaper,' was
soon abandoned, as also was a yet bolder attempt made
in 1870 to convert it into a regular morning newspaper
of full dimensions, the afternoon sheet, if hardly suc-
cessful from a commercial point of view, soon became
an influential organ of opinion.

No less interesting was the appearance, on Decem-
ber 8, 1868, of ' The Echo,' as a halfpenny paper, giving
original articles as weU as news, in four compact pages,
with four columns in each. ' The Echo ' was projected
by Cobden's old friend and associate, John Cassell, of
the firm of Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, as a thoroughly
Radical journal. It was begun on the eve of Glad-

1865-1870. 'THE PALL MALL' AND 'THE ECHO' 275

stone's taking office as premier. ' The nation has
elected Mr. Gladstone to its highest office,' it said in
the opening article, ' and while he is fortifying himself
with individual support, we may step forward and sur-
vey the task which awaits the complete action of his
cabinet.' ' It will be our duty,' it was added, ' as serv-
ing the nation at large, to criticise the action of the
government with impartiahty. We hope for much from
Mr. Grladstone ; we know how severely he will be
tried.' ^ Edited during many years by Arthur Arnold,
and with Frances Power Cobbe for one of its principal
writers, ' The Echo ' appealed to a different class of
readers, and depended more than its costlier rival upon
news reports for its popularity, but it was no less sig-
nificant as an innovation on the old methods of after-
noon journalism.

Another change may here be noted. ' The Globe,'
falling into new hands, and finally abandoning the
Liberalism for which it had been famous in the days of
Colonel Torrens, was altered in shape and reduced in
price to a penny on June 28, 1869, and became a
vigorous exponent of the cautious Conservatism of
men like Sir Stafford Northcote. As nine years before,
on June 11, 1860, ' The Evening Standard' had been
commenced, or revived, as a pendant to ' The Standard,'
which had been converted from an afternoon into a
morning paper in 1857, the London Tories had now
two evening papers, both giving fuller news within
their wider limits than there was room for either in
'The Pall Mall Gazette' or in 'The Echo,' which,
smaller in size, devoted more space to original wi'iting
in the interests of diverse phases of Liberalism.

The great quickening of Liberal opinion which
compelled Disraeli to pass the Reform Act of 1867, and

' Echo, December 8, 1868.

I 2

276 TWEL'XrE YEAES OF PROGRESS ch. xxu.

the demand for fresh legislation whicli was responded
to by the short admiaistrations of Lord Derby and
Disraeli before the autumn of 1868, and after that
much more when Grladstone became premier with
Bright as a member of his cabinet, gave new life to
journalism in the provinces as well as in London.
Country newspapers, indeed, now first acquired the full
measure of dignity and influence they have since
possessed. The few that had begun ten or a dozen
years before to be issued daily instead of weekly were
now worthy rivals of the London press, and the
number was added to nearly every year. Most of these
were Liberal, and generally Radical, in their politics ;
but, among others, the Birmingham Conservatives had
in 1862 their 'Daily Gazette' in opposition to 'The
Daily Post ' ; in 1863 ' The Manchester Courier '
entered boldly into rivalry with ' The Manchester
Guardian ' and ' The Manchester Examiner ' ; and in
Leeds ' The Yorkshire Post ' placed itself, in 1866, in
competition with ' The Leeds Mercury.' These and
the other country daily papers secured the services of
editors and leader writers on a level with all but the
most eminent of those employed in London. Most
of them had correspondents in London who for-
warded, first by post and afterwards by telegraph,
special reports of parliamentary proceedings and general
events of importance ; and arrangements were made for
collecting all such local news as was interesting to
readers within the areas for which they catered. In
these ways, all other news of interest being compactly
given as well, and the whole being adequately com-
mented on from local as well as from imperial stand-
points, the district papers were made in many respects
more attractive and valuable, for their districts, than the
London papers could be. The monopoly and even the

1862-1870. THE COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS 277

supremacy of ' The Times ' and its metropolitan con-
temporaries were tlius effectively broken down.

Meanwhile the country weekly papers prospered in
like ways. New ones were started, and old ones
were improved, in the smaller towns and the towns
that had ceased to be small through the spread of
industrial and even of agricultural energy. While
the great towns, like Manchester and Liverpool, Leeds
and Newcastle, Birmingham and Plymouth, became,
as Edinburgh and Glasgow had been before them,
capitals of great provinces, and produced daily papers,
as well as other things, for the benefit of the large
areas around them, thus to some extent usurping the
old functions of the metropolis on the Thames, there
was an ample growth in each of these areas of more or
less skUfully conducted weekly papers which took the
place of, and generally equalled if they did not surpass,
such weekly papers as had existed only a generation
before in Manchester and the other local centres.

These various developments were much aided by
the extension of the railway and yet more of the tele-
graphic systems, and by other organisations which they
encouraged or facilitated. The plan for supplying
from London digests of news, original articles, and
even stereotyped columns of matter ready for insertion
in local journals which, as has already been noted, took
shape in the establishment of the Central Press in
1863, was expanded or modified in the Central News
in 1870, and further improved upon by. the National
Press Agency, of which Edward Dawson Rogers was the
manager. These and other institutions, though very
serviceable to small and struggling papers, were not
much cared for by those provincial dailies which could
afford to obtain what they wanted in more inde-
pendent ways. The provincial dailies, as well as their

278 TWELVE YEARS OF PROGRESS ch. xxn.

humbler contemporaries, however, were admirably
served by the Press Association which was started in
1868 as an offshoot of the Provincial Newspaper
Society, and to meet a necessity that had long been
growing.

As far back as 1852 the several telegraph companies
had begun to make special arrangements for the sup-
ply of news from London, chiefly on commercial and
sporting afi'airs ; and this, collected by their own
clerks, was transmitted at reduced rates, but often
tardily and inaccurately, to the newspaper offices in
which it was desired. The arrangement, welcome at
first, soon proved unsatisfactory. In 1856 John
Edward Taylor, of ' The Manchester Guardian,' sought
to obtain a special report of the proceedings in parlia-
ment, but was not allowed to have any but that pre-
pared for all the country papers by the ' intelligence
department ' of the combined telegraph companies. In
1860 much inconvenience was caused by serious
blunders in the report of Gladstone's budget speech
which had been supplied to ' The Liverpool Mercury,''
' The "Western Morning News,' and other papers.
Grievances like those were fi-equent and various, and
for some time the country newspaper managers pro-
tested in vain against the formidable monopoly which
the telegraph companies were acquiring. The managers
complained that they were at the mercy of the com-
panies, being charged exorbitantly for late and un-
trustworthy information, and, if they rejected this, being
altogether debarred from providing their readers with
much news that they looked for. At length the
grievance assumed such proportions that it became a
prominent ground for the agitation in favour of placing
the telegraphs under state management, and, in antici-
pation of this important change, which came into force.

1865-1868. THE PRESS ASSOCIATION 279

in February 1870, suitable arrangements were made for
enabling newspaper intelligence to be systematically
and cbeaply transmitted along the telegraph wires. As
part of these arrangements, a Press Association, started
in Manchester in 1865 by John Edward Taylor and
others, was reshaped as the Press Association which
has existed in London since 1868.^

The purpose of this remarkable and successful
organisation, of which John Lovell was the manager
until, in 1880, he became editor of ' The Liverpool
Mercury,' was to supply all newspapers, whose pro-
prietors were members of the company, with every sort
of news that they could require, political bias being as
far as possible excluded, and the information, especially as
regards parliamentary proceedings and public meetings,
being given at length or in epitome according to the
exigencies of the various subscribei's. Especially use-
ful to country papers in obtaining news from London,
it was also very useful to London papers in obtaining
news from the country. It and the Central News, and
other agencies competing with them or supplementing
their work, have been of incalculable service in improving
the machinery of journaHsm.^ Concurrent with their
progress, as collectors and distributors chiefly of English
news, moreover, has been that of Renter's and similar
agencies, specially concerned in the collection and
distribution of news from abroad.

News from abroad did much in 1870 and afterwards
to raise the fortunes of several newspapers. In obtaining
from their special correspondents graphic accounts of the

' Whorlow, Tlie Provincial Newspaper Society, pp. 74-86 ; William
Hunt, TJien and Now, pp. 109-148.

' In 1871 the number of words transmitted to newspapers through the
Postal Telegraph Department was 21,708,968. The figures had risen to
327,707,407 in 1881, and to 451,061,164 in 1886 ; and this apart from
thirty special wires used by newspapers.

280 TWELVE TEABS OF PKOGRESS ch. xssu

incidents of the American civil war, the rivals of ' The
Times ' had for the first time emulated the success with
which it had made English readers familiar, week by
week, with the progress of the Crimean war. The war
between Austria and Prussia in 1866 was too short and
sudden to give any considerable occupation to the spe-
cial correspondents, although William Howard Russell's
letters to ' The Times ' thereon served to maintain his
and its reputation for pre-eminence in this new line of
journalism. When, in July 1870, however. Napoleon
III. rushed into his suicidal contest with Prussia, the
conditions were different. Russell continued to be the
most careful and intelligent describer and critic of the
military operations that ensued, but he had at least one
competitor more enterprising than himself, besides seve-
ral others who were able to send home, to some of the
provincial as well as to the London journals, lively
reports of what they saw and heard.

Archibald Forbes, the son of a Scotch minister, had
shown his roving disposition by running away from college,
and had served as a private soldier in India and elsewhere,
before, finding- himself in London in 1868, he started,
at the age of thirty, on a literary career. ' The London
Scotsman,' a small weekly paper, had lately been com-
menced, with a serial tale of Scottish life as one of its
features, and, the writer of this tale being prevented
from continuing his task, Forbes took up the story in the
middle and cleverly completed it. Other work fell in
his way, but he was chiefly employed on ' The London
Scotsman,' of which he acquired the editorship, until
the war broke out, when he spent a few weeks in watch-
ing its commencement as correspondent with the Grerman
army for ' The Morning Advertiser.' While at Metz
he made the acquaintance of Russell, who was acting
for ' The Times,' and was offered by him a place among

1870. ARCHIBALD FORBES AND ' THE DAILY NEWS ' 281

his assistants. Declining the offer, Forbes was, to his
great chagrin, recalled a few days later by his employers,
on the plea that his letters were not good enough for
* The Morning Advertiser ' ; and, on his return to
London, he called at the ' Times ' office in the hope of
obtaining a market for some ' exclusive information as
to the disposition of the German front before Paris '
which he had brought with him. ' The communication
was discouraged,' says one of his friends, ' and he stood
in Fleet Street, hesitating which of the three daily news-
papers in the immediate neighbourhood to offer his
" copy " to. He decided, by tossing up, on " The Daily
News," and on the following morning made his first
appearance in the columns of the journal with which
he has since been so intimately associated.' ^ Before
another morning came he was on his way back to Metz
as the special correspondent of ' The Daily News.'

The conductors of ' The Daily News,' boldly re-
solving to spare no labour and expense in outstripping
' The Times ' and all other rivals in this respect, made
lavish provision for the employment of correspondents
at the scene of war, and for obtaining their letters by
telegraph instead of by post. ' You and Bismarck,'
Shirley Brooks once said to Robinson, ' are the only
persons who have gained by this war ; you deserved it.'^
Forbes was well fitted to help and share in the gain. A
quick observer, a shrewd guesser, and a rapid writer,
with great powers of physical endurance and rare versa-
tility in devising and making ready use of expedients
for quick movement from place to place and for over-
coming all obstacles, he contrived to be in the thick
of every important operation, to send home livelier

' GdebriUes at Home (reprinted from The World), vol. iii. p. 44. See
also The Jov/malist, January 14, 1887.
" Hatton, Journalistic London, p. 56.

282 TWELVE YEARS OF PEOGRESS ch. xxii.

reports of his experiences than any one else could have
penned, and often to be far ahead of all his rivals.

A characteristic anecdote is told of his exploit after
the surrender of Paris in January 1871. ' The corre-
spondent of " The Daily News " was the first newspaper
man in Paris after that eventful day, and conveyed his
impressions by means of a long- concerted scheme.
Riding into Paris from the north side, he saw all that was
to be seen, and, after surmounting various difficulties,
contrived to get out again, rode to Ligny, and travelled
by train all the way to Carlsruhe, whence he forwarded
his letter of three columns by telegraph to London, and
then returned to Paris, to find a couple of special cor-
respondents there to laugh at his apparently tardy
arrival, and tell him — all in a good-natured fashion —
that at last they had got the better of him, and left him
" out in the cold." He did not reply. There is a
canny northern proverb to the efi"ect that " it's a canny
thing to say nowt," and on this he acted, until " The
Daily News " arrived in Paris, and his friendly rivals
were thunderstruck to find that they had been antici-
pated by three days.' ^

Three months later, after the communists' insurrec-
tion had broken out in Paris, and he had been compelled,
in self-defence, to assist in some of their proceedings,,
Forbes determined to force his way out and bring his
own parcel of news to London. 'Armed with one
official envelope directed to the Queen of England,'
accordmg to the same informant, ' he escaped from the
burning city, and, by means of another dummy letter
addressed to Lord Granville, obtained precedence at
the crowded ferry. Thence he rode to St. Denis, and,
writing by the way, came on to England by train and
mail-boat, on which he was the solitary passenger. At

' Celebrities at Some, vol. iii. p. 46.

1871. ARCHIBALD FORBES AND ' THE DAILY NEWS ' 283

Calais he telegraphed to " The Daily News " to keep
space, and he arrived at the office, with his account of
Paris in flames, at six a.m. At eight appeared the special
edition of the newspaper, and at a quarter to ten Mr.
Robinson found his correspondent asleep in his room,
with the " Post Office Directory " for a pillow. As Mr.
Porbes's letter was the first intimation of the state of
Paris received ia this country, the excitement was great.
In the afternoon a question was asked of Mr. Gladstone
in the House of Commons whether the government
had any information of the condition of the French
capital, as set forth in " The Daily News." He replied
that he had no information, and sincerely hoped that
the statements in that jom*nal were exaggerated. Sub-
sequent information proved that the account of Mr.
Forbes was rather under than over stated.' ^

During the war, and mainly by reason of its graphic
letters on the subject, the circulation of ' The Daily
News ' rose from 50,000 to 150,000 a day. All the
credit was not due, however, to Forbes's contributions,
which were afterwards repriated as ' My Experiences of
the War between France and Germany,' The work of
several hands besides his appeared in another reprint,
' The War Correspondence of " The Daily News," '
and yet another was ' The Diary of a Besieged Resident
in Paris,' by Henry Labouchere. The large library of
books issued on the same theme attests the zeal of other
able newspaper correspondents, notably ' My Diary in
the Last Great War,' recounting Russell's experiences
in the service of ' The Times.'

If ' The Daily News ' profited most by this melan-
choly business, there were few papers which did not
gain fresh readers by the keen desire of the public for
information, and the evening journals were especially

' Celebrities at Home, vol. iii. p. 48.

284 TWELVE YEARS OF PROaRESS ch. xxn.

benefited. ' The Observer,' also, without a rival in pub-
lishing such news as reached London late on Saturday
night and on Sunday morning, was in this way revived
from many years of apathy, and able to take for itself and
to maiataiu a unique position as a high-priced Sunday
paper, replacing ' The Times ' and the other journals
for the one day ia the week on which none of them
were issued. The results to the pubhc from all the zeal
for late news which was thus encouraged may not have
been wholly advantageous ; but their bearing on the
modern progress of journalism was all the more re-
markable when we take account of the drawbacks to
their value.

Newspapers were, perhaps, at their highest level of
real value, though not of influence or circulation, in
1870 and the few years ensuing. Nearly everything, so
far as we now know, that could be done for them in the
way of mechanical conveniences and freedom from fiscal
and legislative restraints had by that time been done.
It had come to be possible for a large and well-printed
sheet, supplying intelligence from all parts of the world,
put together at great cost, and edited with great care,
to be sold for a penny ; and the number of people able
and anxious to read good newspapers had grown with
the trade that catered for them. The competition be-
tween rival producers was keen enough to force them to
use aU their wits in seeking and winning public favour,
but not yet so keen as to drive them often into un-
worthy ways of attracting and amusing readers.

Of the three firmly-established penny daily papers
in London each had a place and a function of its own.
' The Daily News ' was as Radical as it dared to be,
considering its recognised position as the champion,
though not the avowed organ, of Gladstone's reform-
ing government, and it worthily performed its office.

1870-1874. THE RIVALS OF 'THE TIMES' 285

Towards the passing of the Irish Church Disestablish-
ment Act in 1869, the Irish Land Act in 1870, and all
the other great measures of that time, it rendered
material help, and if it was less zealous in its support
of some of the later projects of the ministry, it was
honestly and eflfectively ministerialist. The sound
judgment, the generous sympathies touched with honest
cynicism, and the incisive writing, of its talented editor,
all aptly shown in the remarkable series of ' Political
Portraits ' which he reprinted from the ' Daily News '
in 1873, gave the paper such political weight as it had
never had before ; and Hill received capable assistance
from Justin McCarthy and such other writers, serious
and Hght, as Robert GiiFen, E. L. Grodkin, P. W.
Clayden, and William Black, as well as from all the cor-
respondents specially employed in war time. ' The
Daily Telegraph ' claimed to be no less Liberal, but
adopted a method of its own in addressing the large
body of readers whom it pleased. Its politics were
more gushing and versatile, and, while it made its
politics entertaining, it offered plenty of other enter-
tainment in better contributions to the reform of social
abuses than James Greenwood's imaginary account of
a ' man and dog fight ' in Staffordshire, which, anti-
cipating the ' sensational journalism ' of more recent
years, did something at the time to discredit it. ' The
Standard,' then edited by Captain Hamber, was more
thoroughgoing in its Toryism than it had formerly
been or was soon to be, but was none the less acceptable
to its Tory readers on that account. The bold line
taken up by it in opposition to Gladstone's Irish church
and land-law reforms was in keeping with the fierce ad-
vocacy of the cause of the Southerners in the American
civil war by which the famous letters of ' Manhattan '
had greatly increased its circulation a few years before.

286 TWELVE YEARS OF PROGRESS ch. xxir.

Of the three high-priced London morning papers,
' The Morning Post ' alone was thoroughgoing and
consistent in its Toryism ; but both the others agreed
with it in some essentials. ' The Morning Advertiser '
was converted from Liberalism by the interference of
the Gladstone government with the ' vested interests '
of its publican readers, culminatiag in Bruce's Liquor
Licences Act of 1871, and, James Grant being suc-
ceeded as editor by Colonel Richards, what was scorn-
fully described as ' the alliance of Beer and the Bible '
had vigorous and outspoken support from ' The Adver-
tiser.' ' The Times ' was more dignified and discreet in
its leanings towards Tory tactics and its insistence on
Tory principles ; but already ' the decliae of " The
Times'" had become a subject of common talk, a
ground of lamentation for its admirers and of rejoicing
for its opponents.

A formidable indictment of ' The Times,' one of
many such, written in the spring of 1871, shows us
how it was then judged by competent critics. ' Cer-
tainly,' said the writer, after contrasting it with the
penny papers, ' " The Times " is still the great parlia-
mentary reporter ; its space does that for it. Neither
has any diminution yet appeared in the vast array
of its advertisements. Besides parliamentary reports
and advertisements, however, what have we ? Not even
a good arrangement. The " make-up " seems to be too
often the result of accident rather than of anything
else ; the principle of a judicious subordination being so
little respected that it is as likely as not for some in-
significant topic to fill a couple of columns, while really
important subjects are dismissed in a paragraph. Not
good correspondence. For a paper of its class " The
Times " is one of the worst-informed journals of the
world. It is difficult to find any great or remarkable

1871. THE FAULTS OF ' THE TIMES ' 287

"transaction happening anywhere upon the whole con-
tinent which has received from " The Times " any-
thing like an appropriate notice, even if it has received
any notice at all. The recent war and the disastrous
scenes at Paris form, of course, an exception ; but even
the war correspondence of more than one metropolitan
rival is, as usual, preferred by a large circle of readers.'
Concerning other foreign affairs, it was pointed out that
' The Times,' when it touched on them at all, was more
ignorant or more misguided than any of its leading
contemporaries, faulty as they might be. So it was as
regards the great national movements then going on in
Austria, Italy, and Spain, and as regards other con-
■cerns. ' The dangerous crisis ia the Danubian princi-
palities, the attitude of the Tzar towards the Russian
leaders of the Pan-Slavist movement, even the position
of parties in the German Reichstag, are all so many
scarcely opened, or closed and sealed, books to the huge
newspaper of Printing House Square.'

The last and most serious count in the indictment
touched on matters nearer home. ' One relic of its
past,' it was said, ' " The Times " stUl hugs with un-
alterable fondness — its Irish policy. What that policy
has cost both the EngUsh and Irish nations before now
it boots not to inquire at length. How often have dis-
passionate witnesses borne testimony to the fearful exas-
peration that awoke among the tortured people when,
in the melancholy time of the great Irish exodus, " The
Times " raised its song of triumph over the flight of the
famishing myriads, exclaiming, with thoroughly English
exultation over calamity, that the Celts were going
" with a vengeance." The lesson of hate once taught
is not easily forgotten, and we know how to return
" with a vengeance " has continued to be the aspiration
of the survivors and heirs of the expatriated Celts.

288 TWELVE YEARS OF PROGRESS CH. xxii.

This office of " The Times " is only too well appreciated
in Ireland. When the provisions of the last Peace
Preservation Act increasing the remedies against in-
cendiary writing were being introduced, one of the
commonest remarks called forth by the measure was
that while " The Times " continued to lavish its daily
diatribes against Ireland, Fenianism would never stand
in need of any other incendiary writing. To this hour
the bitter insults of " The Times " continue to be the
texts for the most passionate appeals of the anti-English
party. It is useless to assure large classes of Irishmen
that, when the leading English journal writes thus, the
majority of Englishmen are not of the same opinion,
and perpetuation of Celtic hatred is part of the price
paid for the reputation of ■' The Times " as a representa-
tive journal. More than that, it does form the opinion
of many Englishmen, and that most mischievously.
Everyone who reads the Irish correspondence of " The
Times," its sensational telegrams, its reports of outrages,
its prominent narratives of Lotharios horsewhipped
and robberies expected, must find it difficult to remem-
ber that Ireland is the least criminal country in Europe,
that the breach of the social virtues is almost unknown,
that, except an odd squireen or land-agent, who has
generally richly deserved the execrations of the com-
munity, the Kerry hills and Tipperary mountains, the
midland pastures and the southland tillage fields, are as
safe as Fleet Street or the Strand.'^

These sentences are from ' The Examiner,' about
which, as we have seen something of its work in Leigh
Hunt's and Albany Fonblanque's days, a little more
may here be said. Fonblanque, who had long ceased
to edit his paper or to write much for it, had been
urged, after ' The Saturday Review ' established new

' Examhier, April 15, 1871.

1867-1871. lATER DAYS OF 'THE EXAMINER' 289

rules for weekly journalism, to reconstruct it in a form
fitted for carrying on in new liaes its old Radical war
against Toryism, Whiggism, and all obstructive forces,
however styled. He did not do this, however, and in
1867 he sold it to William Torrens McCullagh, who
had now altered his name to McCullagh Torrens.
Torrens reduced the price from sixpence to threepence,
but did not change the shape or plan, and in his
hands ' The Examiner ' lost all that was left of its old
character and influence. More than half of the space
was occupied with ill-assorted scraps of stale news, and
but three or four pages were allowed for original writing,
which latter was entrusted to incompetent and ill-paid
scribes, except now and then when the proprietor had
some personal object to serve by wielding his own once
vigorous pen. The paper had sunk to its lowest ebb
at the close of 1870, when the copyright was bought by
a too sanguine Radical, who hoped that, with the scanty
means at his disposal, he might be able to restore it,
under the fresh conditions that had arisen, to something
like the position and influence it had held earlier in the
century. Accordingly a new series of ' The Examiner,'
offering for threepence nearly as much matter as ' The
Saturday Review' or ' The Spectator' provided for six-
pence, and similar in arrangement, though not in tone,
was commenced on January 7, 1871.

' The Examiner ' in its altered form discussed the
political and other aff'airs of the day in an altogether
independent spirit, the editor and most of those who
wrote for him being in general agreement with the
views of John Stuart Mill and such men as Cairnes and
Fawcett, and therefore in the main with those of Cobden
and Bright ; but they ventured to think for themselves,
and, as plain speakers of their thoughts, they made no
attempt to trim their phrases so as to obtain outward

VOL. II. U

290 TWELVE YEARS OF PROGRESS oh. xxu.

accord between all the opinions they severally expressed.
Commending whatever they approved in the policy of the
Gladstone administration, and endorsing it as a whole,
they did not shrink from criticising or blaming when
they held that criticism or blame was called for, and
they used a like freedom in discussing all social and
general questions. Recognising the necessity of oppor-
tunism in statesmanship, they protested against any
patchwork legislation calculated to aggravate rather than
to remove the evils afflicting society. They insisted on the
need of striking at the root of abuses as the only means
of really overcoming them, and with this object they
used the occurrences of the hour to illustrate and en-
force ethical and economical laws which seemed to
them to be too much ignored, even by those who
professed to obey them. They fearlessly attacked what-
ever conventional arrangements, theological or other
dogmas, and political and other traditions, they deemed
obnoxious. Deprecating all foreign complications,
oppression of subject races, as in India, and such mis-
government in Ireland as even Grladstone's beneficent
reforms as regards land- ownership, ecclesiastical control,
and so forth appeared to deal with but inadequately, they
anticipated several problems that have since attracted
general attention. Desiring many social reforms, they
dwelt especially on the importance of removing all
arbitrary restraints upon the free action of women, either
as bread-winners or as citizens. They incurred the
reproach of riding too many hobbies, but several of the
hobbies they rode were by their efforts brought into
prominence, and shown to be, to say the least, in no
way dangerous.

The new line taken by ' The Examiner ' frightened
away from it nearly all of the few dozen readers who
remained at the end of 1870, but other readers came to

1871-1874. LATER DAYS OF 'THE EXAMINER' 291

it, and, with a respectable circulation, it acquired a very-
considerable influence ia tbe course of tbe next tbree
years. John Stuart MiU wrote some articles for it, and
in it Algernon Charles Swinburne first issued bis ' Dirae, '
a series of political sonnets. Other and more frequent
writers, whose names have since come to be well
Tjnown for other journalistic and literary work, were
H. D. TraUl, W. A. Hunter, William Minto, Richard
Garnett, John Macdonald, Robert Williams, Mrs.
Fawcett, Frances Power Cobbe, and Frederika Richard-
son, afterwards Mrs. Macdonald. On May 17, 1873,
nine days after the death of Mill at Avignon, a double
number of ' The Examiner ' was pubhshed, containing
twelve articles on various aspects of his character and
work which had been contributed by Herbert Spencer,
Cairnes, Frederic Harrison, Henry Fawcett, W. T.
Thornton, W. A. Hunter, William Minto, and others.

In the autumn of 1873 ' The Examiner ' was sold
to P. A. Taylor, by whom it was transferred soon after-
wards to Lord Rosebery, among its later editors being
William Minto and Robert WUliams. Passing into yet
other hands, it was allowed to die ingloriously in 1880.

The weekly papers which, apart from political pur-
pose, ' The Examiner ' most nearly resembled — ' The
Saturday Review ' and ' The Spectator ' — were more
fortunate. ' The Saturday Review,' without quite
abandoning its claim to independence or its old an-
tagonism to ' The Times,' and losing much of the vigour
with which it started, was now successful as being, in
some respects and very different ways, a counterpart
■of ' The Times ' among the weeklies. ' The Spectator '
prospered by combining less thorough Eadicalism than
' The Examiner ' set forth with the skilful utterance of
views in theology and philosophy which were agreeable
to latitudinarian churchmen and thoughtful dissenters.

V 2

292 TWELVE YEARS OF PROGRESS ch. xxti.

The political attitude of ' The Spectator ' at this
time may be seen from its remarks on the memorable
address issued by Gladstone to his Greenwich con-
stituents on January 23, 1874, announcing his inten-
tion to dissolve parliament, and to arrange for abolition
of the income tax as a prelude to further and extensive
reforms. ' No sincere Liberal,' said ' The Spectator,'
' will doubt that Mr. Gladstone's appeal to the people
of England ought to meet with a cordial and grateful
response. This government has been distmguished
above all other Liberal governments for the honesty
and earnestness with which it has redeemed its pledges,
instead of using them mainly as baits to catch votes.
It has been a steady, and an upright, and a Liberal
government, not a Conservative government with a
Liberal name, and has done more to gain for the people
of the United Kingdom some addition to that stock
of human happiness which, as Mr. Gladstone as truly
as pathetically says, is never too abundant, than any
government of the present generation. The genuine
Liberals, who see its shortcomings best, will also best
see its immeasurable superiority to anything likely to
replace it.' ^

With those trustful remarks of ' The Spectator ' it is
interesting and convenient here, though this is not alto-
gether the place for them, to compare the indignant
observations of ' The Pall Mall Gazette ' on the same
manifesto. ' The authority which he wants and openly
asks for,' we were told, ' is a personal authority, renewed
and confirmed by a pUbiscite : " Unambiguously express
your opinions once more, or, in other words, make me
again personally supreme and paramount over the other
branch of the legislature. Make me again the absolute
ruler I was five years ago, confirm the powerful and

^ Spectator, January 30, 1874.

1874 THE FIRST GLADSTONE ADMINISTRATION 293

authentic, but now more remote judgment of 1868, and
I in return will remit you the income tax, lighten your
local burdens, and free your breakfast tables." Such is
the offer, and, whatever we think of its terms or its
morality, its candour is nndeniable.' ^

The answer given by the constituencies to Gladstone's
appeal, placing the Conservatives in power in March
1874, and setting many fresh forces at work, had
noteworthy results on the progress of journalism.

1 Pall Mall Gazette, January 25, 1874.

294

CHAPTER XXIII.

CLASS AND CLIQUE JOTTENALISM.
1862—1886.

Though politics and such social matters as have clear
political bearings are supposed to be the chief business
of the more important newspapers, nearly all of them
have from the first paid more or less attention to aflfarrs
of trade, to popular amusements, to fresh productions
in literature, science, and art, and to whatever else is
interesting to any large section of then* readers, and, as
we have seen, several journals were started long ago
with the object of supplying fuller information than
was elsewhere given about particular concerns, in ways
either of pastime or of serious occupation, and of com-
menting thereupon.J In recent years, however, there
have been remarkable expansion and variety in what
may be called the by-paths of journalism, and though
no more than a desultory review need be attempted, a
little must now be said about these.

/When the abolition of the paper duty opened the
way for further development of all sorts of newspaper
enterprise there were, besides several religious journals,
ten principal weeklies, each with one or more rivals,
which may be grouped under our miscellaneous category.
' The Illustrated London News ' had for its speciality
the pictures that accompanied its budget of general
information ; and ' Punch ' also joined pictures with its

1862-1886. THE GKOWTH OF CLASS NEWSPAPERS 295

jokes and humorous strictures on current events and
contemporary follies. ' The Athenaeum ' took the lead
in literary criticism, and included science, art, and
theatrical amusements in its scheme of general culture.
' The Lancet ' and ' The Army and Navy Gazette '
represented two of the professions. ' The Economist '
discussed and explained commercial affairs, and ' The
Builder ' was one of the oldest and most successful
of particular trade organs. ' The Field ' was ' the
country gentleman's newspaper,' dealing with sports,
pastimes, and all country pursuits. ' Bell's Life in
London ' was devoted to other sports, and, especially
in the old days, to pugilism ; and ' The Era,' originally
a publican's paper, had come to take particular interest
in theatrical affairs. There were four or five times as
many other class and clique papers in 1862, and the
number has increased seven or eight fold during the
past quarter of a century, with considerable re-arrange-
ment, subdivision, and intermixing of specialities, and
with some very curious additions to the list.

For a long time, after as well as before the death of
its founder in 1860, ' The Illustrated London News '
had almost a monopoly in pictorial journahsin. Herbert
Ingram and his successors were able to either crush or
control nearly aU formidable rivals throughout six or
seven and twenty years, the most important of these
being 'The Illustrated Times,' with the exception,
perhaps, of 'The Queen.' Started in 1861 by S. 0.
Beeton, and carried on with difficulty for some while as
a miscellany of news and gossip for ladies' reading,
with fashion-plates as its principal illustrations, ' The
Queen ' only began to be prosperous after it had been
bought by Horace Cox, the versatile and speculative
deputy assistant judge of the Middlesex sessions, and
was placed under the same management as ' The Field '

296 ' CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM oh. xxm.

of which lie was also proprietor. A humbler but very
enterprising competitor with Ingram's journal was
' The Penny Illustrated Paper,' also started in 1861,
which in time was acquired by the owners of ' The
Illustrated London News,' and amalgamated with ' The
Illustrated Times.'

Herbert Ingram was a zealous and intelligent caterer
for the large body of readers whom he attracted to his
paper, and his policy was ably continued by his son,
William Ingram. Even at the time of the Crimean
war ' The Illustrated ' had three ' special artists,' who
sent home to it sketches of interesting scenes, Samuel
Kead from Constantipole and the Black Sea, Edward
Goodall from the Baltic, and J. W. Carmichael from
the Crimea. For these and others plenty of useful work
was found in peace time as well as during later wars, '
William Simpson, who accompanied the Abyssinian
expedition, having since then been one of the most
energetic. ' When the great war of 1870 between France
and Prussia broke out,' says the art editor of ' The
Illustrated,' 'the special artists on both sides encountered
all sorts of hardships, and passed through all kinds of
adventures in fulfilling their duties. Besides being
frequently arrested as spies, and undergoing the priva-
tions of beleaguered places, they had to run the risk of
shot and shell, and sometimes they were obliged to
destroy their ssketching materials under fear of arrest.
One of them was in custody as a spy no less than eleven
times during the war. The danger of being seen
sketching, or being found with sketches in their posses-
sion was so great, that on one occasion a special artist
actually swallowed his sketch to avoid being taken
up as a spy. Another purchased the largest book of
cigarette papers he could obtain, and on them he made
little sketches, prepared in case of danger to smoke

1862-1870. ' THE ILLUSTRATED ' AND ' TPIE GRAPHIC ' 297

them in the faces of his enemies.' When the German
armies were closing round Paris one of the five artists
employed by ' The Illustrated ' remained inside the city,
and during the siege his sketches were sent off by
balloon.^

The first of its rivals that ' The Illustrated London
News ' could not suppress was ' The Graphic,' which
had a memorable origin. Among the artists employed
as draughtsmen and engravers by ' The Illustrated '
during many years prior to 1869 were two talented
brothers, George and William Thomas. George Thomas
died before he was fifty, and, for the benefit of his
family, it was proposed to reissue in a memorial volume
some specimens of his work. The proprietors of ' The
Illustrated,' however, refused to lend the wood-blocks
requii'ed for this purpose, and the ill-feeling that arose
led to WiUiam Thomas's withdrawal fi-om the establish-
ment.^ He opened communications with Nathaniel
Cooke, Herbert Ingram's brother-in-law and partner,
who had long before retired from the firm, and with
other capitalists, and means were found without much
difficulty for starting ' The Graphic ' in December
1869.

The new paper soon achieved the success it de-
served. Thomas and his editors — at first Sutherland
Edwards and then Arthur Locker — obtained the help
of Frank Holl, Luke Fildes, Hubert Herkomer, Mrs.
Butler, Mrs. Allingham, and many other artists, and
also of a large staff of clever and brilliant writers.
' The Graphic,' when it commenced, was in advance
of anything that had yet been produced in the way of
illustrated journalism, with an ample complement of
literary strength, and the breaking out of the Franco-

' Mason Jackson, The Pictorial Press of London, pp. 330-340.
' Hatton, Jov/rnalisUc London, p. 238.

298 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxin,

German war soon after was very serviceable to it. The
vigorous competition maintained between it and ' The
Illustrated ' was wholly to the advantage of the public,
and, contrary to general expectation, was only benefi-
cial to both papers. Both have prospered, and they
have been stimulated by one another, and by the large
sale their enterprise has secured, to add every year alike
to their artistic and to their literary value. Providing
fiction as well as fact in their columns, they are some-
what less of newspapers than ' The Illustrated ' and its
older rivals used to be, but they have not on this
account neglected the functions proper to pictorial
journalism. If ' The Graphic ' has given evidence of
more variety in the choice of interesting material both
for artistic and for literaiy work, ' The Illustrated,'^
edited for many years past by John Latey, has not
allowed itself to be superseded. For a long time-
' Echoes of the Week,' written till recently by George
Augustus Sala, in themselves sufficed to attract to
' The Illustrated ' a large body of readers.

Of other illustrated papers produced to meet the
new public taste which those two had cultivated, the
most noteworthy was ' The Pictorial World,' commenc-
ing its less prosperous career in 1874. In the same
year was started ' The Illustrated Sporting and Drama-
tic News,' but both it and ' The Lady's Pictorial ' have
looked less to pictures than to other matter for their
popularity.

' Punch ' had outlived many younger rivals during
its twenty years' existence before 1862, and has con-
trived to hold its ground ever since. ' Fun,' started in
1860, and edited first by Tom Hood the younger and
afterwards by Henry Sampson, was for many years a
dangerous opponent, being lower in price and more-
Liberal in its opinions ; but neither its Radicalism nor

1862-1874. COMIC PAPERS AND 'SOCIETY' PAPERS 299

the Conservatism of ' Judy,' wHcli was begun in 1867,
made them as generally acceptable as the indiscriminate
satire in which ' Punch ' indulged under Mark Lemon
and his successor, Shirley Brooks. ' The Tomahawk,'
with Matt Morgan as illustrator, which was started in
May 1867, was a formidable rival at first, but, having
nothing but its cartoons to recommend it, it died in
June 1870. ' Punch,' at its lowest level after 1874,
when Tom Taylor became editoi', began to revive
when F. C. Burnand took charge of the comic sheet.
Among a crowd of later competitors, some of them
mistaking coarseness for wit and singularly devoid of
humour, ' Funny Folks ' has given a large supply of
smart writing in its penny numbers since 1874.

Another and a much more important paper dates
from the same year. ' The World ' was by no means
the first experiment ia what is now known as ' society
journalism,' but it was nearly the first in our own day
to be successful. The idea can be traced back to
Queen Anne's time, when Defoe's reports of the Scandal
Club in his ' Review ' were imitated by many, with re-
finement by Addison, Steele, and others, and with much
offensiveness by writers like Mrs. Manley. Personal
abuse and tittle-tattle of all sorts, designed to amuse
the public, if not to cause pam to individuals whose
follies and weaknesses were described or falsified, or
else to gratify the vanity of others whose doings were
more amiably recorded, was the life of many papers
throughout the eighteenth century, including especially
' The Morning Post ' in its earlier days. ' John Bull,'
under Theodore Hook, as we have seen, was a con-
spicuous example of this vicious phase of journahsm
as it appeared in the nineteenth century, and such
papers as ' The Age ' and ' The Town,' though even
coarser, were not more disgraceful. Edmund Yates

300 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM en. xxiii.

however, had some ground for claiming to be its most
successful adapter for the present generation.

By his gossip as ' The Lounger at the Clubs ' in
' The Illustrated Times,' Yates had pleased many
readers during three years before May 1858, when he
undertook to edit a new paper, ' Town Talk,' projected
by John Maxwell. ' My little bantling,' he says, ' was
a very different kind of production from the sheet which
has in later years appropriated its title. It was a quiet,
harmless little paper, with a political cartoon drawn
by Watts Phillips, who also contributed its politics
and heavy literature. It contained a portion of a serial
story, a set of verses, and a certain amount of scissors-
work. All the rest of the original matter was mine.'
Part of this original matter was a weekly column of
' Literary Talk,' in which, giving a friendly account of
Dickens in one week, Yates made in the next some very
unfriendly remarks about Thackeray, sneering at him in
particular for ' cuttmg his coat according to his cloth,'
showing ' extravagant adulation of birth and posi-
tion ' when lecturing to a fashionable audience, but
making ' " the four Georges " the objects of his bitterest
attacks ' when lecturing to Republicans in America.
Yates said afterwards, ' No one can see more clearly
than I do the silliness and bad taste of the article ' ; but
when Thackeray angrily wrote to complain of it as
' slanderous and untrue,' the author, at Dickens's advice,
replied that it was Thackeray's letter which was ' slan-
derous and untrue,' and he accordingly refused to make
any apology or reparation. The immediate issue of
this unfortunate quarrel was Yates's expulsion from
the Garrick Club on the members' resolution ' that the
publishmg of such articles, being reflections by one
member against any other, wUl be fatal to the com-
fort of the club, and is intolerable in a society of

1862-1858. EDMUND YATES AND GRENVILLE MURRAY 301

gentlemen.'^ A more remote and important issue was
a considerable extension of personality in journalism.

The chief credit, such, as it is, of reviving in its
modern form this branch of journalism, however, must
be assigned, not to Edmund Yates, but to E. C. Gren-
viUe Murray. Murray, whose father was supposed to
be the second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos,
graphically described by him in his ' Young Brown,'
was a favourite of Lord Palmerston's, who, in 1852,
appointed him to an attach^ship in Vienna, with
secret permission to act as correspondent of ' The
Morning Post,' the Palmerstonian organ at that time.
Murray's letters were sent home in the Foreign Office
bag, but some of them miscarried, and, instead of being
delivered to the editor of ' The Post,' were returned as
' dead letters,' and thus reached Lord Westmoreland,
the British minister at Vienna. The ambassador, first
informed by them concerning his subordinate's extra-
official occupations, indignantly demanded his dismissal.
Murray was not dismissed, but transferred to Constan-
tinople, and thence after a short time sent by Lord
Stratford de Kedclifife to act as vice-consul at Mity-
lehe. This exile being irksome to him, he relieved its
monotony by writing the ' Roving Englishman ' series
of articles which appeared in ' Household Words,' and
by which, among other offences against the authorities,
he brought general contempt on the great plenipoten-
tiary, whose eccentricities he ridiculed under the charac-
ter of Sir Hector Stubble. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe
sought, as Lord Westmoreland had done, to get Murray
removed fi-om the service, but Palmerston's power was
too great. At length, after about two years' squabbling,
the obnoxious attache was promoted to be consul-

' The whole story has been retold and commented on at length by Mr.
Yates in his BecoUections and Experiences, vol. ii. pp. 9-37.

302 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxur.

general at Odessa. There he remained ten years, en-
gaged in perpetual war with the English residents until,
his patron being dead, and the Earl of Derby, then
Lord Stanley, being foreign secretary, he received such
different treatment that, throwing up his appointment,
he returned to England and made literature his sole
occupation.^

To Murray's instigation, though as much mystery
as possible was maintained as to all the arrangements,
must mainly be attributed the origination of ' Vanity
Fair.' This earliest of the modern ' society journals '
appeared on November 7, 1868, the price being then
twopence, with the announcement that ' in this show it
is proposed to display the vanities of the week, without
ignoring or disguisuig the fact that they are vanities,
but keeping always in mind that in the paying and
selling of them there is always to be made a profit of
the truth ' — an ambiguous sentence, very ingeniously
constructed. With the thirteenth number, for which a
shilling was charged, a coloured caricature of Disraeli,
the first of a famous series, was given, and after that
the price was for some while sixpence, the paper being
by that time considerably enlarged. To this smart and
cruel weekly Murray was a regular contributor ; but,
bitter as it could be, he wanted a bolder channel for
his spite, and with this object, in January 1869, ' The
Queen's Messenger ' was started.

' The Queen's Messenger ' did not live long. In
June there appeared in it an article on ' Bob Coaching-
ton, Lord Jarvey,' one of a series dealing with the
politicians of former times, in which very plain language
was used about the first Lord Carrington, who, being
Robert Smith, the banker, before he was raised to the

' Truth, December 29, 1880 (containing an • anecdotal photograph ' of
Grenville Murray) ; Yates, vol. ii. pp. 309-312.

1868-1869. ' VANITY FAIR ' AND ' QUEEN'S MESSENGER 303

peerage, had been serviceable in many ways to William
Pitt. By way of punishing the reputed writer for
the slanders on his father, the second Lord Carrington
iorsewhipped Murray at the door of the Conservative
Club in St. James's Street on June 22, and for this
assault a charge was preferred against him at Marl-
borough Street police court on July 7. ' After much
wrangling,' according to the record, ' Mr. Murray
denied the authorship of the article, but declined to
answer the questions relating to his connection with the
paper. A number of letters, articles in manuscript, and
a corrected proof of an article were shown to him, but he
•declined to say whether they were in his handwriting.
He admitted that he had written some articles in " The
Queen's Messenger," but said he would rather have cut
oflF his right hand than have written others. Lord
Carrington was ultimately bound over to keep the peace
in reference to one summons, and committed for trial
on the second, charging assault. At the close of the
proceedings a disgraceful struggle took place between
the friends of the contending parties for the possession
of a box containing papers relating to " The Queen's
Messenger," and said to have been improperly trans-
ferred to the keeping of Lord Carrington's solicitor.'
On July 17 Murray was charged at Bow Street with
perjury in denying that he had written the article
on ' Bob Coachington, Lord Jarvey,' and, after some
evidence had been heard, he was admitted to bail on
the case being remanded to the 29th. On that day he
failed to appear, and ' the police magistrate refusing to
give credence to the plea of sudden attack of iUness in
Paris, whither he was said to have gone to see his son
his recognisances were ordered to be estreated, and a
warrant issued for his apprehension.' ^ The only result

' Irving, Annals of ow Time, pp. 877, 881.

304 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxiii.

of those proceedings, however, was that, Murray was
kept out of England. He lived in France until his death
in December 1880, taking the title of a Spanish lady
whom he had married, and being known as Comte
de Eethel d'Aragon.' ^

' The Queen's Messenger ' died in consequence of
his flight ; but he contributed profusely to ' The
Daily News,' 'The Pall Mall Gazette,' and other
papers, including ' Vanity Fair,' which profited much
through the quickening of public interest in this sort
of journalism by the Carrington-Miirray scandal.
Other ' society journals ' were started to meet the de-
mand for smart personalities and scurrility ; but only
'Vanity Fair' survived until a new and vigorous
competitor appeared in ' The World.'

The scheme of this fresh venture, in some respects
more ambitious than any that had been yet attempted,
was broached by Yates to Murray early in 1874, and
promptly put into shape, these two being equal partners,
the one acting as editor with absolute authority in London,
and the other being a copious contributor from Paris.
The first number of ' The World, a Journal for Men
and Women,' appeared on July 8. It promised in the

^ ' When in the humour,' says his biographer in Truth, presumably
Mr. Labouchere, 'he was a brilliant conversationalist — ^humorous, caustic,
and full of anecdote. In person he was slim, and rather below medium
height, with well-cut features, exceedingly bright eyes, and with a face
that lighted up when he was animated ; but few of those who may have
seen him in an old felt hat and a stiU older shooting- jacket, strolling
along the boulevards or in the alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, would have
imagined that they were in the presence of the ablest journalist of the
century.' That closing assumption is open to question ; but there can be
no doubt as to Iiis talents, with a spice of genius. Much of Iiis writing
was high-class hack-work. One editor recalls a visit from a respectable
solicitor in ] 871, who offered to supply him with any quantity of articles
from Murray, on condition that payment should be made, not to the
author direct, but to the solicitor, who stated that, Murray's brains being
mortgaged to his creditors, only an allowance was made to him out of the
income he earned.

1874. THE COMMENCEMENT OF 'THE WORLD' 305

prospectus, to be ' an amusing clironicle of current his-
tory, divested of tlie nonsense which, has hitherto stuck
hke treacle to public business, so that apparently it could
not be touched with clean hands ' ; to ' recognise women
as a reasonable class of the community, whose interests
should be equitably considered and their errors explained
without levity or hysterics ' ; to publish ' that rarest of
all things — candid reviews of good books, good plays,
good pictures, and discoveries in science, treating them
as the natural expression of the highest form of intel-
lect, and actually bestowing honest praise on living-
genius ' ; and, among much else, to give ' the latest
intelhgence from the turf, the hunting-field, and the
Stock Exchange,' in such ways as to ' vastly surprise
those who are wont to look upon sport and city in then*
conventional aspect.' ' Politics, and even parhamen-
tary proceedings deserving of attention,' it was said,
' will sometimes be discussed from any point of view
from which there is a clearer prospect, or less of fog,
than is usual. They will be good-naturedly removed
from that queer eminence to which they have been
hoisted by official vanity and departmental advertise-
ments ; they will be restored in safety to the proper
place which good sense assigns to them in the concerns
of nations ; they wiU be made intelligible to rational
persons, over whose minds at present they have little
authority and less influence.' One of the chief func-
tions of the paper was stated last, and more humorously
than distinctly. ' " The World," ' it was announced,
' has pleasant tidings for the court and aristocracy. It
will receive contributions fi-om people of rank who know
anything worth communicating, and who can write a
legible hand. The spelling and grammar of the nobUity
will be corrected ; and manuscripts, when done with,
will be discreetly buried at midnight during a thmider-

VOL. II. X

306 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxiii.

storm, in order that the capital sin of possessing
intellect may never be brought home to anybody.
Accounts with contributors to "The World" will be
settled every week ■ and it is confidently believed that
this inducement alone will be sufficient to secure a
steady literary support from the great officers of state
in a land whose peers and officials are among the keenest
of customers.'

Yates' s scornful pledge was so far kept that, though
names were often told in whispers, no record has been
made of the aristocratic contributors to the columns,
always the most popular, detailing ' What the World
says,' but about some of his other helpers the editor has
himself told a good deal. From the commencement
T. H. S. Estcott, then almost a novice in London journal-
ism, wrote much on a great many subjects. Henry
Labouchere wrote the articles on financial aff"airs, attack-
ing in particular fraudulent stockbrokers and stock-
jobbers and dishonest moneylenders, which attracted
great attention, and, by provoking threats of libel
actions, effectively advertised the paper. The Earl of
Winchilsea was for three months the sporting critic.
' Jezebel a la mode ' was the first of a series of articles
by Mrs. Lynn Linton. Other writers of prose were
Dr. Birkbeck HUl and Camille Barr^re — an industrious
journalist in London before, his share in the Paris com-
mune being forgiven, he became the favourite of Gam-
betta, and ultimately French minister ia Egypt ; to whom
were added before long Archibald Forbes, J. Comyns
Carr, Button Cook, E. S. Dallas, and, most serviceable
of all, Henry W. Lucy, whose ' Under the Clock ' chat
about parliamentary proceedings was instructive as
well as amusing. Contributions in verse came from
Mortimer Collins, F. J. Scudamore, and Herman Meri-
vale. Grenville Murray sent several ' Portraits in Oil '

.1874. THE WAYS OF 'THE WORLD' 307

from Paris ; and, besides other writing, Yates supplied
the first serial novel, ' A Decree Nisi,' being followed
in this line by Wilkie Collins, Rice and Besant, Miss
Braddon, Hawley Smart, Mrs. Forrester, and others.
After a few weeks, in the course of which only 101. was
spent in advertisements, and the whole outlay was no
more than 700Z., ' The World ' was an assured success ;
and at the end of six months, a quarrel arising between
the projectors, and the property being officially valued
at 3,000^., Yates became sole owner by paying Murray
1,500Z. for his investment of 350^.-^

If the popularity of ' The World ' was largely due
to its mild scandal and more or less impertinent tittle-
tattle, it must be admitted that all this was far more
harmless than anything of the sort that had yet been
attempted on so large a scale. It amused many, grati-
fied some, and offended only a few. The weaknesses
and vanities of those gossiped about were more often
humoured than seriously condemned, and, though to
some of its subjects even this treatment was distasteful,
flattery was generally preferred to spite. Stern treat-
ment was, as a rule, reserved for such as might be
supposed to merit it, and it was most fi:equent, where it
was most allowable, in Labouchere's handling of city
fi'auds and ti'adesmen's tricks. In the ' Celebrities at
Home ' series, one of the special and more attractive
features of ' The World,' there was proper avoidance of
the vicious discourtesies and wanton libels in which
Murray and others had before indulged. The rule laid
down, ' that no person should be made the subject of
one of these articles without his or her consent having
been previously obtaiaed, and without fuU liberty, if
they wished it, to inspect the article in proof before it
was published,' inevitably weakened some of the articles,

1 Yates, Recollections and JExperiences, vol. ii. pp. 321-330.

308 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM en. ixnr.

and favoured inaccuracy in certain directions, but it
afforded ample protection botli for those wlio liked and
for those who did not like to be thus ' celebrated.' The
Prince of Wales was one of those who ' accorded imme-
diate consent ' to the proposal that he should be inter-
viewed, and when this had been done by Archibald
Forbes, ' his Royal Highness was pleased to express his
full approval of the article.' Anthony TroUope was
one of those who declined the honour. ' I allow that
your articles are cleverly done, and without the least
offence,' he wrote ; ' also that you have many very dis-
tinguished people in your gallery. But I would rather
not.' 1

The prosperity of ' The Woiid ' encouraged many
imitators and more or less successful or unsuccessful
rivals. The first of any importance was ' The Whitehall
Review,' started on May 20, 1876, by Edward Legge,
who left ' The Morning Post ' to combine with its
' society journalism ' uncompromising Toryism and
sturdy support of religious orthodoxy, and who fol-
lowed the example of ' Vanity Fair ' in issuing a weekly
cartoon ; the ' Leaders of Society ' in ' The Whitehall, "^
however, being women, and not caricatured. Of shorter
life was ' Ma3?fair,' of which a prehminary ' Christmas
number ' appeared on December 19, 1876, and wliich
was regularly begun as ' a Tuesday journal of politics,
society, and literature, unambitiously illustrated,' on
January 2, 1877. The editor of ' Mayfair ' was Henry
W. Lucy, whose clever ' Under the Clock ' sketches in
' The World ' had pleased so many readers that it was
hoped they would suffice to make the new venture suc-
cessful, especially as Lucy and his friends announced
that, though they would not reject wealth if it came in
their way, their sole aim was ' to discuss the fashions of"

' Yates, vol. ii. pp. 331, 332, 333.

1876-1880. IMITATORS OF 'THE WORLD' 309

the day in a maimer unaffected by considerations of
mere expediency.' ' There was some smart writing,
and there were humorous little drawings mixed up with
the letterpress, in ' Mayfair ' ; but the contents were
unequal and awkwardly put together. Lucy soon
withdrew from the speculation, and after other efforts
had been made to keep it alive, it came to an end in.
December 1879. Even more disastrous to its promo-
ters was another paper, ' Pan,' which commenced smartly
with illustrations by Alfred Thompson, and with con-
tributions by Grenville Murray, Sala, and others, but
which very soon collapsed, being edited during part of its
short career by David Anderson. In the meanwhile
another speculation by another seceder from the staff
ot' ' The World ' had proved thoroughly successful.
In ' Truth,' which was started on January 4, 1877, two
days later than ' Mayfau',' Henry Labouchere improved
upon his experiences imder Yates, and was able to give
freer utterance to his opinions in politics as well as on
social concerns.

Labouchere had had wide experience in other ways
before he made journalism one of his professions.
After a short and stormy university career, he con-
iiinued his education by two or three years' wandering
about in America, for a part of the time as member of a
travelling circus ; and he was in America for two or three
years longer as an attache m Washington, after he had
entered the diplomatic service. There and elsewhere,
in Russia, Germany, Sweden, Italy, and Turkey, he
gave nearly as much annoyance to ambassadors and
the Foreign Office authorities as did Grenville Murray,
though by different conduct. It was his boast that
gaming-tables and other pleasure resorts occupied him
too much for any time to be left for his official duties, but

' Mayfair, December 19, 1876.

310 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISAI ch. xiiii,

lie was more giA^en to making friendships than enmities,
and when he parted company with his employers he
bore them no particular ill-will.^ He settled down in
England in 1864, when he was tliirty-three, and had
sat in Parliament, first for Windsor and then for Mid-
dlesex, before 1868, when he became one of the proprie-
tors of ' The Daily News.' His ' Diary of a Besieged
Eesident in Paris,' contributed to that paper, gave
striking evidence of his capacity as a journalist, and
other evidence appeared in his contributions to ' The
World.' His personal acquaintance with the ways of
' bulls ' and ' bears ' on the Stock Exchange, of extor-
tionate money-lenders, and of other disreputable people,
enabled him to write with such vigour and precision
as were rare, and almost unparalleled, in this line of
newspaper work. After two and a half years' employ-
ment on ' The World ' he was well qualified to make
profitable use of all his varied experience as proprietor
and editor of ' Truth.'

This was perhaps the only paper ever published
which more than paid its expenses from the first number,
and a few weeks' experimenting resulted in many im-
provements that increased its popularity and its conse-
quent value as a property. In the ' Entre Nous ' columns
of ' Truth ' there was less fashionable gossip but more
of biting satire and straightforward fault-finding than
in the corresponding portion of ' The World.' In these
columns, as well as in others, moreover, along with the
social chit-chat and the personal scorn, not seldom re-
lieved by good-natured paragraphs, there was plenty of
outspoken Radicalism, variable in its tone and some-
times iUogical, but always smart and often forcible in
its utterance. As was to be expected, Labouchere was
generally at his best in his exposure of commercial and

' Hatton, Journalistic London, pp. 97-103.

1877. HEKRY LABOUCHERE AND 'TRUTH' 311

financial scandals ; but lie contrived to make nearly every
page of ' Truth ' thorougMy readable. In lieu of a long
novel, as in ' The World,' each number contained a
' Queer Story,' generally supplied untU his death by
Grenville Mm-ray. The ' Anecdotal Photographs,' given
each week, almost from the first, if not so uniformly
complimentary as the ' Celebrities at Home ' in ' The
World,' were generally quite as accurate and frequently
more instructive. The notices of new plays and other
amusements were always vivacious and for the most
part just in their criticism. ' Truth,' moreover, was
exceptionally fortunate in securing as a contributor fi-om
Paris Mrs. Emily Crawford, the wife of the 'Daily
News ' corrrespondent, whose long residence in France
and close intimacy with Victor Hugo, Gambetta,
Clemenceau, and every one else of note in France, male
or female, during two generations, enabled her to de-
scribe the details of political and social life with remark-
able precision and truthfulness, her sound judgment and
keen sense of humour having at their service a facile
pen. Credited with writing a large portion of ' Truth '
himself, Labouchere was lucky m his choice of assis-
tants.

Of the younger ' society journals ' little needs to
be said. ' Life,' commenced six months after ' Truth,'
sought favour rather by its daintily executed illustra-
tions— reproductions of foreign pictures being for some
time given in alternate weeks with portraits of ' fashion-
able beauties,' actresses and others, by Frank Miles — than
by its written matter. ' Society,' also dating from 1879,
had a curious origin and progress. Its precursor was
' The British Mercantile Gazette,' which had given with
its drier contents a weekly budget of gossip. This
proved so successful that George Plant, the proprietor
and editor, shrewdly expanded it into a separate penny

312 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxiii.

paper which, issued on Wednesdays, also answered so
well that in December 1880, a threepenny Wednesday
' Society,' copiously illustrated, was added to the venture.
Another change took place in the autumn of 1882, when
the price of the paper, then published only on Satur-
days, was raised to sixpence, and so continued for some
time until it was deemed expedient to revert to the
original style and price. Meanwhile a rival, ' Modern
Society,' appeared in 1880, and a ' Modern Truth ' was
started in 1886 ; the charge for each being a penny,
and no great effort being made to achieve literary
eminence or to do more than repeat the jokes and in-
formation provided by the costlier paj)ers. The taste
developed in recent years for this sort of reading has
been abundantly catered for, and the result, if not digni-
fied or refining, is perhaps an advance on the penny
novelettes on which formerly, millLners, ladies' -maids,
and others chiefly depended for their literary entertain-
ment.

Before the penny ' society journals ' appeared, there
had been several enterprises somewhat akin to them,
the most noteworthy being ' Figaro,' started by James
Mortimer in 1870, as a Saturday penny miscellany,
which essayed satirical handling of political and social
as well as theatrical affairs, and was at one time
so successful that during a few years a twopenny
' Figaro ' was also issued on Wednesdays. The influence
of ' society journalism' and its comic adjuncts, indeed,
has shown itself in many of the more sedate journals,
daily and weekly. Just as Yates amused readers of
' The Illustrated Times ' and ' The Morning Star ' by
his ' Lounger ' and ' Flaneur ' columns, other papers
found it convenient to string together chatty paragraphs
dealing with rumours or facts that were hardly suitable
material for leading articles. This was especially the

1870-1886. OTHER 'SOCIETY' PAPERS 313

case with the country papers, for which, as has been
noted, ' London letters ' were long ago prepared. On
the other hand, neaiiy all the 'society journals' have
made it their business to discuss, though usually in
more playful or mocking terms than were formerly
deemed proper, grave pohtical questions and whatever
■else was of general interest in the events of the day.
The influence of ' Truth ' and ' The World ' and their
pioneers on newspaper work has been as marked in
some directions as that of ' The Saturday Review ' has
been in others.

' The Saturday Review,' itself open to the charge of
flippancy, has had a very beneficial influence in one field
of journalism where the work of its more flippant rivals
has been, if anything, pernicious. In criticism and
literary culture it set an example that was much needed
in 1855. ' The Athenasum' had been in existence for
twenty-seven years, and had done immense service as
an organ and censor of literature, with more than inci-
dental reference to movements in science and art. ' The
Literary Gazette ' was also stiU alive, and there were
several weekly papers, ' The Leader,' ' The Critic,' and
■others which, following the plan of ' The Examiner '
and ' The Spectator,' paid special attention to these
subjects along with their reports and comments on
political and general aff'airs. Nearly all the daily papers,
moreover, included new books, as well as new plays
and other novelties, among the subjects dealt with in
their columns. All this criticism, however, was apt to
be slipshod and often very uncritical. Though ' The
Athenaeum ' continued to be the great literary authority
among newspapers, it had lost value as a safe and im-
partial guide before Hepworth Dixon became its editor
in 1853, and Dixon's showy writing and encouragement
among his contributors of the strong exjDression of likes

314 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxiir..

and dislikes frequently grounded on nothing worthier
or safer than personal friendships or animosities, or
subservience to publishers and advertisers, caused its
steady deterioration from year to year. ' The Saturday
Keview,' though often more anxious to be smart than to
be just, and, written chiefly by men intolerant of every-
thing not bearing the university stamp, had excellent
effect in raising the standard of criticism, and this was
shown, not only in the improved tone of many of the
existing weekl}^ and daily papers, but also in several
new enterprises.

One such was ' The Reader,' which, ' The Literary
Gazette ' having died and ' The Athenaeum ' having
reduced its price to threepence in 1862, was commenced
as a large fourpenny ' review of current literature ' on
January 3, 1863. ' Totally unconnected with any
publishing firm,' it was announced, ' " The Reader "'
will show favour to all works of sterling worth, without
caring through what channel they come before the
public' Its first editor, amiable, high-minded, and
zealous, was John Malcolm Ludlow, and among the
writers whom he gathered round him were, in alpha-
betical order, Shirley Brooks, Llewellyn Davies, Edward
Dicey, Albert Dicey, H. R. Fox Bourne, F. J. Furnivall,
Francis Galton, Richard Garnett, Mrs. Gaskell, P. G.
Hamerton, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Hughes, Holman .
Hunt, R. H. Button, Charles Kingsley, J. Norman
Lockyer, Frederick Denison Maurice, Laurence Oliphant,
Mark Pattison, William Michael Rossetti, Canon —
afterwards Dean — Stanley, and Leslie Stephen. Lud-
low's honesty, however, and especially his interpretation
of the pledge given in the sentence just quoted, were
too much for those who found money for the under-
takmg and expected to make money by it, and after a
few months he was replaced by David Masson, who in

1863-1881. 'THE HEADER' AND 'THE ACADEMY' 315

his turn, after a few months' trial, and for the same
reason, resigned the editorship. ' The Reader ' had
grievously deteriorated and had lost all the strength it
possessed in the days of its brilliant commencement
before April 7, 1866, when the price was reduced to
twopence, and there was no cause for regret in its death
on July 28 in the same year.

A more cautious and at the same time more am-
bitious effort at cultured literary jom'nalism was begun
three years later, on October 9, 1869, when the first
number of ' The Academy ' appeared as ' a monthly
record of literature, learning, science, and art.' After
January 1871 it was issued fortnightly, and in January
1874 it was converted into a weekly paper, the price
being lowered from sixjpence to fourpence. Its pro-
jector, and editor till his death in 1879, at the age of
thirty-eight, was Charles Edward Cutts Birch Appleton,
a genuine student and an enthusiast in the cause of
learning, of refined taste and aesthetic sympathies, but
inclined to scholastic pedantry and — as the name he
chose for the paper implied — to academic arrogance.
' A critical journal,' he said, ' was demanded which
should neither praise indiscriminately nor blame from
pique or prejudice, one on which the general reader
might rely for guidance through the waste of superficial
and ephemeral literature by which he is surrounded ^
and through which he has neither time nor perhaps the
ability to guide himself; a journal which should syste-
matically survey the European literary and scientific
movement as a whole, and pass judgment upon books-
net from an insular, still less from a partisan, but from
a cosmopolitan j)oint of view ; a journal, lastly, in which
only permanent works of taste and real additions to^
knowledge should be taken into account, and in which
the honesty and competence of the reviewer should be

•316 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxiii.

vouched for by his signature.' ^ Formidable signatures
were appended to some of the articles in the first num-
ber— those, namely, of Matthew Arnold, Sidney Colvin,
T. H. Huxley, John Lubbock, Mark Pattison, and John
Conington ; and these and many other scores of writers
contributed, more or less abundantly, to the subsequent
numbers during Appleton's nine and a half years' editor-
shij), and afterwards. ' The Academy ' prospered enough
to live, though the anxieties incident to it are considered
to have caused the premature death of its estimable
conductor, and its influence on modern culture is not to
be measured by the extent of its circulation ; but it
failed, partly through faults in its plan, to achieve the
pre-eminence it aimed at.

One of the functions proj)osed for itself at starting
by ' The Academy ' was usurped and skilfully performed
by a friendly rival, only a month later in the field.
' Nature,' commenced on November 4, 1869, gave re-
markable evidence of the demand that had arisen for
sound yet popular information on scientific affairs, and
•of the philosophical yet practical way in which that
demand could be met. Its editor, Norman Lockyer
who had come to the front as a scientific journalist in
the columns of ' The Reader,' and who had smce done
much other work, was well suited for his post, and he had
invaluable help from Charles Darwin, Huxley, Stanley
Jevons, Lubbock, Roscoe, Tyndall, and nearly every
■one else able to speak intelligibly and with authority
on matters of special research and general knowledge.
' Nature ' soon became, and has since continued to be,
the recognised channel for the communication to the
2Dublic of new discoveries and fresh criticisms by capable
inquirers in nearly every branch of physical research,
and even more than that.

' Academy, October 22, 1870.

1869-1886. 'NATURE' AND 'THE ATHEN./EUM ' 317

' The Athenaeum ' profited by the competition it had
to face. Matters were not mended under Hepworth
Dixon's sway, but after the death, in 1869, of the first
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, son of the Dilke who had
become its sole proprietor in 1830, a great reformation
took place, the new proprietor having an able assistant
in Norman MacCoU, who succeeded Hepworth Dixon as-
editor. Some old writers were parted with, and a great
many fresh contributors were found. While special
departments, such as science, art, music and the drama,
were of necessity entrusted to regular hands, indeed, the
reviewing of books, now more than ever the principal
business of ' The Athenaeum,' was distributed over a
very large staff, the plan being to assign each work to
a writer familiar with its subject and competent to deal
with it mtelligently, but rigidly to exclude personal
favouritism or prejudice, and to secure as much im-
partiality as possible. The rule of anonymity has been
more carefully observed in ' The Athenfeum ' than in
most other papers. Its authority as a literary censor
is not lessened, however, and is in some res2Dects in-
creased, by the fact that the paper itself, and not any
particular critic of great or small account, is responsible
for the verdicts passed in its columns.

Of some other, and very extensive, developments in
various lines of class journalism since 1861, it is not
necessary, or possible, here to say much. Each, to be
adequately dealt with, would claim a long chapter to
itself; and of the merits and demerits, the aims and
achievements, of the numerous competitors or associates
in several groups, it would be rash for an outsider to
speak. So it is particularly with the religious news-
papers, of which more than a hundred have appeared,
representiug difierent sections of opinion within the
limits of the Church of England, and among dissenters

318 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxm.

from it, since ' The Record ' was started in 1828 ; witli
ttie organs of tlie naval and military, the legal and the
medical professions ; and with the numberless trade
organs, of which some, like ' Iron,' an outgrowth of
' The Mechanics' Magazine,' which was started in 1823,
and ' The Builder,' dating from 1842, are of long
standing and wide repute, wliile others, like ' The Hair-
dressers' Weekly Journal,' commenced in 1881, and
' The Shoe and Leather Record,' commenced in 1886,
are of recent origin and narrow scope.

Among commercial and financial journals, ' The
Economist ' hilsTiad many rivals since 1861. The first
of importance was ' The Money Market Review,' begun
in 1862, which, dealing more exclusively with mone-
tary affairs, left ' The Economist ' in undisputed posses-
sion of the questions of broad commercial policy, and of
its political connections, to which it had all along paid
great attention. 'The Bullionist' followed in 1866,
' The Financier ' in 1870, and ' Money' in 1872. By
this time every daily and nearly every weekly paper of
general politics had come to pay close attention to city
concerns, and especially to the operations of the Stock
Exchange ; but few of them were free from suspicion of
making improper use of their opportunities for propping
up unstable companies and promoting risky specula-
tions. ' The Times ' was, during some years, particu-
larly notorious and obnoxious for this offence, which,
gross as it was, was not easily to be prevented, seeing
that editors and proprietors, if they were themselves
proof against temptations to serve personal friends, and
to accept comfortable bribes through roundabout and
specious agencies, were at the mercy, so long as they
retained them, of the clever writers whom they em-
ployed. ' The Times ' was partly relieved of the scandal
^attached to it in this way by the dismissal of its very

1862-1886. COMMEECIAL AND FINANCIAL PAPERS 319

unworthy city editor, in 1874, and one of Labouchere's
earliest and most successful achievements, while he was
writing on such affairs in ' The World,' was his indignant
denunciation of this culprit, though that was not done till
after he had been made aware of the intended change.
There was great need of such a crusade against dishonest
financiers and their jackals as Labouchere entered upon,
and what he and others following him did was useful in
many ways ; but the crusaders' virtue was lessened by
the fact that many of them even were open to dangerous
influences, and in the way of being prompted by consi-
derations of self-interest. It was with the view of
giving really honest and well-grounded information and
•opinions on financial affairs, and of discussmg cognate
matters in an impartial spirit, that in 1878 Robert
Giffen started ' The Statist,' which since then has been
the princij)al rival of ' The Economist.' In 1884 ' The
Fuiancial News ' was commenced as the first daUy
record of monetary events, ' The Financier ' only ap-
pearing on five days in the week.

Sports and amusements of all sorts are now looked
after by nearly as many special journals as are serious
pursuits and business concerns. Here, as in the case of
trade and finance, the ground has always been touched
upon, and sometimes freely traversed, by the general
newspapers, as part of the miscellaneous information
required by their readers ; and several of the papers
devoted to what are sports and amusements to the
majority are more or less in the nature of trade journals
for those whose business it is to entertain others. But
these pleasure papers constitute a distinct and important
group, in which divers kinds of pleasure-taking are
severally represented, with more or less aggregation and
confusion of different interests.

' The Field,' on the score of dignity, though not of

320 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxiu.

age, ranks first in the list. This ' countiy gentleman's-
newspaper,' started in 1843, was one of many with which
Bradbury and Evans were connected, both as printers
and as proprietors. Its earliest editor was Mark Lemon>
and Leech supplied illustrations of hunting adventure.
One of its owners was Benjamin Webster, the actor ,^
who in time acquired the whole property, not then
lucrative, and by him it was sold to Serjeant Cox, in
whose hands ' The Law Times ' had proved very suc-
cessful, and who soon afterwards included ' The Queen'
in his well-managed and profitable newspaper-producing
establishment. ' The Field ' soon became a comprehen-
sive repository of information on every sort of rural
pastime, treating of agricultural matters and natural
history, as well as of hunting, shooting, coursing, fish-
ing, racing, yachting, cricket, and other occujaations,
and recording foreign experiences and observations
along with interesting and noteworthy occurrences at
home. Edited and subedited by men competent to deal
satisfactorily with the various sections of the paper, and
not stinted in its arrangements for collecting accurate
information, it came to be indispensable in every
country house, and as such its advertising connec-
tion ensured its further success. It left room, how-
ever, for many competitors, the chief of which, in more
serious directions, were ' The Sporting Gazette,' com-
menced in 1862, and converted into ' The County
Gentleman ' in 1880 ; ' Land and Water,' commenced in
1866, and ' The Fishing Gazette,' commenced in 1877.

Older than ' The Field,' and for a long time supreme
as an authority upon one class of aristocratic and popu-
lar amusement, was ' Bell's Life in London,' itself an
outgrowth from ' Bell's Weekly Messenger,' and ' The
Weekly Dispatch,' both of which had been started by
the same proprietor. ' Bell's Messenger,' dating from

1862-1886. 'THE FIELD' AND 'BELL'S LIFE' 321

1796, had led the way as a chronicle of agricultural
aifairs and all matters incidental thereto, and its pros-
perity had induced the establishment, in 1801, of ' The
Weekly Dispatch,' intended to deal with politics in
general, and particularly with pugilism and the kindred
sports patronised by George IV., before he was king,
and all his friends. During twenty years ' The Dis-
patch ' was the leading representative of the prize-ring,
with Radicalism in poHtics as one of its minor features.
It acquired political importance, however, and in 1822
its pugilistic connection was directed into a new chan-
nel, ' Bell's Life in London ' being then established, and
almost exclusively devoted to that branch of journalism.
' The Era,' commenced in 1838, mainly as a weekly
organ of the licensed victuallers, and supplementary to
' The Mornmg Advertiser,' paid considerable attention
to sporting affairs, as also did several other papers ; but
' Bell's Life ' held its ground against all rivals, follow-
ing the fashion in giving prominence to horse-racing as
an occasion for betting, when that began to supersede
pugilism, until 1859. In that year George Maddick
and S. 0. Beeton assisted in the production of a ' Penny
Bell's Life,' which, edited by Henry M. Feist, known
as Augur, and a great authority in the sporting world,
soon proved a formidable oppoi:ient of the high-priced
veteran whose title it had appropriated. A law-suit
ensued, and the proj)rietors of ' Bell's Life ' succeeded
in suppressing the piracy ; but they could not suj)press
the paper. Appearing on Wednesdays and Saturdays
as ' The Sporting Life,' the new publication throve so
well that in April 1881 it began to be issued four days
a week, and in March' 1883 it was converted into a
daily paper. After struggling vainly against this rivalry
during many years, ' Bell's Life ' succumbed in May
1886, when it was merged in ' The Sporting Life.'

VOL. II. T

322 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxiu.

All branches of what is known as sport, in the con-
tracted and technical use of the term — that is, horse-
racing, coursing, pedestrianism, rowing, swimming,
cricket, pugilism, and other athletic exercises, both on
their own account and as opportunities for betting —
being dealt with in ' The Sporting Life ' much more
copiously than by its forerunners, it had in 1865 to face
the opposition of two new papers, ' The Sportsman '
and ' The Sporting Times.' In ' The Sportsman ' spe-
cial attention was given to horse-racing in its betting
relations, one of its innovations being the reporting, not
merely of races and of the condition of horses from the
time of their being entered for particular races, but of
the training of the animals from the commencement of
their careers. In this way something like a reform was
effected in gambling operations. A semblance of honesty
was introduced into the business, and it was no longer
possible for the public to be beguiled into speculating
iipon animals about which nothing was known. A
fresh, and in other respects unhealthy impetus, however,
was thus given to ' sport ' ; and its training reports be-
came such an attractive feature in ' The Sportsman ' that,
at first issued thrice a week, it was able to be converted
into a daily paper in March 1876, seven years before
' The Sporting Life.' ' The Sporting Times ' has con-
tinued to be only a Saturday paper, and has thriven less
upon its racing news than upon its profusion of coarse
and scurrilous scraps of tittle-tattle, representing
'society journalism' in its most degraded form.
Another paper, ' The Sporting Clipper,' finding its
special business in the giving of 'tips,' was started in
1872, and many others followed at later dates, some to
be short-lived, both in London and in the provinces.
It is a more curious than agreeable fact that, besides
receiving more or less attention from nearly every

1862-1886. SPORTING AND THEATRICAL PAPERS 323

general newspaper, ' sport ' should have so many pros-
perous journals exclusively devoted to it.

Another important section of class journalism has
to do with theatrical affairs, although for guidance and
information about new plays outsiders look rather to
the ordinary newsjaapers than to the organs of ' the pro-
fession,' as it calls itself. Though not so intended when
it was commenced, ' The Era ' had come to be such an
organ long before 1862, and it stood almost alone until
1869, when the rise of music-halls in public favour led
to the establishment of ' The Entr'acte ' as the chronicler
and exponent of their productions. ' The Stage ' fol-
lowed in 1881, ' The Topical Times ' in 1883, and
' The Dramatic Review ' — more ambitious in its style
and more independent in its aims — in 1885.

It is somewhat strange that ' The Weekly Dispatch,'
of which ' Bell's Life in London ' was an offshoot ua
1822, should have had another, and a not altogether
dissimilar, offshoot more than half a century later. The
fame of Henry Sampson as a sporting critic, writing for
several years as Pendragon in ' The Dispatch,' led to
the establishment of ' The Referee,' under his editorship,
on bold and original lines, in 1877. Primarily a sport-
ing paper, containing ' Sporting Notions ' by Pendragon,
' Turf Notes and Anticipations ' by other hands, and a
full report for Sunday reading of the latest news in
every branch of sport, ' The Referee ' also furnished
notices of Saturday night performances at the theatres,
and four or five columns of ' Dramatic and Musical
{jossip ' on the occurrences of the previous week-days.
Political and social affairs, moreover, were discussed in
one or two leading articles in each number, and a special
attraction was a three-column assortment of ' Mustard
and Cress,' dealing humorously with all sorts of con-
temporary concerns, great and small, by George R.

t2

324 CLASS AND CLIQUE JOURNALISM ch. xxui.

Sims, writing as Dagonet. The paper thus gave, in its
eight crowded pages, for a penny, comments on political
as well as on sporting and theatrical matters, and joined
with them some of the liveliest functions of ' society
journalism' and of the professedly comic sheets. Its
criticisms on all questions were singularly outspoken
and independent, and, while more rollicking in its wit,
though at the same time more refined, and certainly more
honest, than most of the publications with which in
various respects it competed, ' The Keferee ' stood
almost quite alone, with the exception of ' Truth,' in
its Radicalism. Treading each week, in every column,
on dangerous ground, it incurred some actions for libel,
and on one occasion was mulcted in heavy damages ;
but the novelty and vigour with which it was conducted
speedily secured for it a large circulation, and a position
of great authority on the questions with which it par-
ticularly dealt.

There is yet another variety of class journalism to
be referred to. Most of the papers published in London,
though giving more or less prominence to metropolitan
news, concern themselves so much with political and
other affairs of general interest, that they faU to satisfy
local reqixirements ; and to meet these requirements
special papers, corresponding in some respects to the
provincial journals in their original plans and purposes,
have been established. ' The City Press,' started in
1857, was not the earliest London local paper ; and a
few others of older date still exist, ' The Hammersmith
Observer ' and ' The South London Journal,' for in-
stance, having been commenced in 1855. ' The City
Press,' however, now published twice a week, stands
foremost among about twelve dozen local papers issued
in the metropolis or its immediate suburbs. Ably con-
ducted in many respects, it is the champion of the

1862-1886. 'THE KEFEREE ' AND OTHER PAPERS 325

London corporation, and of ' vested interests ' in gene-
ral, and therefore obnoxious to the reformers, in whose
interests ' The Citizen ' was established, as a weekly
paper, in 1877. Of smaller influence than either of
these is ' The Metropolitan,' which in 1872 appeared as
a supporter of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and a
chronicler of the proceedings of other local bodies, and
with it may be ranked ' The School Board Chi'onicle,'
its senior by a year. Some of the suburban papers,
such as ' The South London Press,' " The Marylebone
Mercury,' ' The East London Observer,' and ' The
Richmond and Twickenham Times,' are as enterprising
as were the best of the proviucial papers a generation
ago. Politics, however, if dealt with at all ia such
papers, are perforce made subservient to miaor interests.

326

CHAPTER XXIV.

ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES.

1874—1886.

The latest stage in the political history of newspapers
dates from the general election of 1874 — not the first
that was held after the passing of the Reform Act of
1867, wliich had considerably altered the distribution
of power among the various sections of the community,
but the first after the changed conditions of parliamen-
tary work had been apprehended by the electorate, and
after the constituencies had had opportunities of judging
both how that work had been done and how it should
have been done. 'For nearly five years,' Disraeli wrote
to Lord Grey, in October 1873, ' the present ministers
have harassed every trade, worried every profession,
and assailed or menaced every class, institution, and
species of property in the country. Occasionally they
have varied this state of civil warfare by perisetrating
some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumb-
ling into mistakes which have been always discreditable
and sometimes ruinous. All this they call a policy, and
seem quite proud of it ; but the country has, I think,
made up its mind to close this career of plundering and
blundering.' In those strictures there was not only
gross exaggeration, but, except in the last particular,
manifest untruth. ' The country,' however, was of
Disraeli's opinion. At the general election of 1868 the
Liberal majority in the House of Commons had been 115.

1874. A CRISIS IN POLITICAL JOURNALISM 327

When Disraeli wrote it had dwindled down to less than
fifty, and Gladstone's Irish University Bill was defeated
by a majority of three. At the general election of
February 1874 the Conservative majority was forty-six.

The newspapers did much to brmg about this result.
Among the London morning journals ' The Daily News'
and ' The Daily Telegraph ' had been almost alone in
strenuous support of the closing acts and proposals of
the Gladstone administration. The indeiicndent organs
of Radicalism had been nearly as outspoken as the Tory
organs in condemning many features of its policy.
There was a rallying of the Liberal forces when the
constituencies were called upon to decide whether Glad-
stone should be retained in office or should be super-
seded by Disraeli. But only those who were more loyal
to men than to measures, who preferred partisanship to
principle, could put much zeal into their effbrts ; and,
on the other hand, a large part of the press was pledged
to the assistance of class interests that the expiring
government had assailed and to the encouragement of
grievances it had created. ' The Morning Advertiser '
was by no means the only newspaper that fought
fiercely under the banner of ' Beer and the Bible,' but
it was just now, for the first and last time in its history,
nearly the most powerful journal in England. It must
be remembered, too, that though the provincial papers
were rapidly gaining ground, they were, with but few
exceptions, as yet only struggling into strength. The
London papers still dominated the country, and not
many of them were heartily Gladstonian.

The chances of Liberal cohesion and revival, in the
newspaper world as well as in parliament, were weak-
ened by Gladstone's abdication of the leadership of the
party, informally notified in his letter to Lord Granville
in March 1874, immediately after the verdict had been

328 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxit.

given against him at the general election, and formally
consummated, as it was thought, in February 1875,
after a year of disorganisation and turmoil. All sections
of Liberals, except the candidates for promotion in each,
agreed in deprecating and deploring his retirement ;
but idle lamentation, as usual, did not promote vigour.
The party was not brought into a healthy or compact
condition when, with Lord Granville as titular head,
the differences as to the respective claims to leadership
in the House of Commons were smoothed over at Glad-
stone's bidding by the selection of Lord Hartington in
preference to Sir William Harcourt, Forster, or Goschen ;
and newspaper editors who looked to their party chiefs
for guidance were unable to follow out any consistent
and important lines of policy. Toryism in general, and
Tory journalism in particular, gained by this Liberal
confusion.

The confusion was useful, however, in so far as it
allowed or compelled the journalists to think more for
themselves and encouraged in many a spirit of inde-
pendence, which increased their influence upon intelli-
gent readers. So it was especially outside of London.
The country newspapers, rising in circulation every
year, acquired more and more value. Freed from the
overpowering weight of metropolitan opinion, each
great provincial town became a political as well as a
commercial or industrial metropolis for its own district,
and had efficient poUtical instruction, not merely on
local affairs but also in views on imperial questions,
more or less modified by local considerations, from such
newspapers as ' The Manchester Guardian ' and ' The
Liverpool Daily Post,' ' The Scotsman ' and ' The Glas-
gow Herald,' ' The Leeds Mercury' and ' The Newcastle
Chronicle,' ' The Birmingham Daily Post ' and ' The
Western Morning News.'

1875-]878. NEWSPAPERS AND THE RUSSIAN WAR 329

The troubles in south-eastern Europe, commencing in
July 1875 with the insurrection in Herzegovina, and cul-
minating in the war between Russia and Turkey, which
began in April 1877, gave new life to Liberal news-
papers, especially in London, and to political journalism
•of all sorts. Every leading paper had several corre-
spondents distributed over the disturbed districts, and
received from them each day long reports of stirring
events there, which not only were of absorbing interest
to then' readers, but also supplied ample materials for
forcible leading articles. Gladstone, coming back from
his retirement, took the lead in a great popular move-
anent, which restrained the Conservative administration
from active participation in the war, and secured the
recognition of some long-despised principles of intei-
national duty and policy. Though the now apparently
reunited Liberal party and the journalists in its service
were able to do little in controlling the government, the
way was being steadily prepared for the great change that
occurred when the time came for another parliament to
be elected. In all this controversy the part played by
journalists was considerable, and perhaps at no previous
time had their mfluence been so great. The influence
was not all in one direction, however, and though the
balance of strength was on the Liberal side, the con-
tending forces were about evenly matched in numbers.

Not for the first time in its ninety years' career,
but more curiously than on most previous occasions,
' The Times ' wavered between the two sides. ' We
have got into a pretty mess,' Gladstone wrote to Abra-
ham Hayward on October 10, 1876. ' " The Times "
appears to be thoroughly emasculated. It does not pay
to read a paj)er which next week is sure to refute what
it has demonstrated this week. It ought to be pro-
hibited to change sides more than a certain number of

330 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxtv.

times in a year. As to the upper ten thousand ' — for
whom, of course, ' The Times ' chiefly wrote — ' it has not
been by the majority of that body that any of the great and
good measures of our century have been carried, though
a minority have done good service.' ' After reading
" The Times " of to-day,' Hay ward replied on the fol-
lowing morning, ' you will be tempted to improve on
your proposal and prohibit them from changing sides
more than once in twenty-four hours. The first article
is anti-Russian, and the second still more decidedly
anti-Turk.' ^

There was some excuse for the infirmities of ' The
Times ' in those daj's. Though not yet sixty, Delane
had been in harness, as its editor, for five-and-thirty
)''eai's, and could not but be worn out by his arduous
labours. What those labours were, and how he strove
to perform them, we may infer from the apology offered
by a friend of Delane's after his death. ' An editor, it
has often been said, sometimes not very seriously, must
know everything,' we read. ' He must, at least, never
be found at fault, and must be always equal to the
occasion as to the personal characteristics, the concerns,
the acts and utterances of those who are charged with
the government of this gi*eat empire. But this is only
one of many points, some even more difficult, because
more special and more apt to lie for a time out of the
scope of ordinary vigilance. With a large class of
critics a small mistake counts as a large one, but every-
body is liable to make mistakes, and an editor labours
under the additional danger of too readily accepting
the words of writers, some of whom will always be too-
full of ideas to pay needful attention to such matters.
These are days of blue-books, of enormous correspond-
ence, of tabular returns, of statistics twisted into everjr

' Correspondence of Abraham Haywnrd, vol. ii. p. 26T.

1874-1877. DELANE'S WORK ON 'THE TIMES' 331

possible form, of averages and differences — always on
supposition — to be carefully remembered, of numerical
comparisons everybody challenges if they are not in his
own favour, and of statements that, if they possess the
least novelty or other interest, are sure to be picked ta
pieces. It frequently happens that a long night's
work has to be thrown away, including many carefully
revised columns of printed matter, to make room for
an overgrown parliamentary debate, a budget of im-
portant despatches, or a speech made in the provinces.
Often has it been said at two in the morning that a
very good paper has been printed and destroyed to
make way for a paper that few wUl read — none, per-
haps, except a few parliamentary gentlemen looking
out for passages which, if they don't read well, must
have been incorrectly reported. As an instance of
what may happen to an editor, the quarterly return of
the revenue once came with an enormous error — an
addition instead of subtraction, or ince versd. The
writer who had to comment on it jotted down the
principal figures and the totals, which were unexpected,
and returned the original for the printers. It was not
till an hour after midnight that, on a sight of the
return in print, the error was perceived, and corrected,
without a word of remark, by the paper. Of course-
the comments had to be rewritten and carefully secured
from error. The work of an editor can only be appre-
ciated by those who have had the fortune to have some
little experience of it. The editor of a London daily
newspaper is held answerable for every word in forty -eight
and sometimes , sixty columns. The merest slip of the
pen, an epithet too much, a wrong date, a name mis-
spelt or a wrong initial before it, a mistake as to some
obscure personage only too glad to seize the oppor-
tunity of showing himself, the misinterpretation of

332 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxiv.

some passage perhaps incapable of interpretation, the
most trifling offence to the personal or national sus-
ceptibility of those who do not even profess to care for
the feelings of others, may prove not only disagreeable
but even costly mistakes ; but they are among the least
to which an editor is liable. As it is impossible to say
what a night may bring forth, and the most important
inteUigence is apt to be the latest, it will often find him
with none to share his responsibility, his colleagues
being either pre-engaged on other matters or no longer
at hand. The editor must be on the spot till the paper
is sent to press, and make decisions on which not only
the approval of the British public, but great events, and
even, great causes, ma}^ hang. All the more serious
part of his duties has to be discharged at the end of a
long day's work, a day of interruptions and conversa-
tions, of letter-reading and letter-writing, when mind
and body are not what they were twelve hours ago,
and wearied nature is putting in her gentle pleas. An
editor cannot husband his strength for the night's
battle by comparative repose in the solitude of a study
•or the freshness of green fields. He must see the
world, converse with its foremost or busiest actors, be
open to information, and on guard against error. All
this ought to be borne in mind by those who complain
that journalism is not infallibly accurate, just, and
agreeable. Their complaints are like those of the court
lord who found fault with the disagreeable necessities
of warfare.' ^

Delane can hardlj'' have been subjected to such an
intolerable strain as those words imply ; but his re-
sponsibilities were stupendous — hardly less, or less
<iomplicated and various, than those of a prime minister,
a.nd he bore them through all the bustling years from

' Times, November 22, 1879.

1877-1879. DELANE AND HIS SUCCESSOR 33o^

1841 to 1877. Eequired both to follow public opinion
in seeming to lead it and to lead in seeming to follow
it, always to conserve as much as he could whether
professing to be Liberal or Conservative, and always to
favour, as Gladstone said, ' the upper ten thousand ' as
against the millions, it was mevitable that the rare,
almost unexampled, capacities Delane possessed for the
editing of a great newspaper should deteriorate in the
course of so long a term, and that the faults with
which he started, but which were merits in the eyes of
those he served as conductor of ' The Times,' should
increase with years. Few men had seen so much, or
done so much for good and for evil, and none had ever
seen or done so much in comiection with the pro-
gress of journalism as he when he died, at the age
of sixty-two, on November 22, 1879. A memorable
company of writers and workers on ' The Times ' —
Thomas Chenery, Leonard Courtney, James Caird,
Henry Reeve, John C. Macdonald, and many others —
were gathered together on December 1, when the vener-
able Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne, the S. G. 0. of a
quarter of a century before, read the service at his
burial.^

Two years earher, in October 1877, Delane had
retired from the editorship of ' The Times.' His suc-
cessor was Thomas Chenery, less known to the public
as a journalist than as a member of the Old Testament
Revision Committee of the Convocation of Canter-
bury, professor of Arabic at the university of Oxford,
translator of 'The Assemblies' by El Hariry, and
learned editor of Jehudah Ben Shelomo Alkharizi's
' Machberoth Ithiel.' All Chenery's oriental studies,
however, had been incidental or supplementary to his
work on ' The Times.' He had been its correspondent

1 Times, December 2, 1879.

334 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxiv.

in Constantinople during the Crimean war ; and after
that he had been a constant writer on various subjects
for the paper.

Opinions differed as to his fitness to succeed Delane.
' Chenery, the new editor, has j ust called, and we had a
lono- talk,' Hayward, now a frequent contributor, wrote
on December 12, 1877. ' I like him very much. I think
he will make " The Times " all it should be.' ' ' Lord
Beaconsfield,' with whom Yates was conversing at
Brighton, ' said he had heard " that he held a chair of
Arabic somewhere," but did not consider that a very
essential qualification for the editor of " The Times."
I ventured to traverse this statement,' Yates adds, 'and
told him that Mr. Chenery was an excellent journalist,
and had twenty years' experience of the traditions of
Printing House Square. " But is he versed in social
diplomacy like Mr. Delane ? That is an important
part of his duties," said Lord Beaconsfield.' ^

Since ' The Times ' had become a convert to his
foreign policy, if not to all his tactics on home affairs,
Lord Beaconsfield had learned to think more highly
than in former days both of Delane and of the social
diplomacy in which Delane had excelled, and he had
not much reason to complain of the tone of the paper
after the change in the editorship. ' The Times ' under
Chenery, after some wavering, was more energetic and
consistent in its advocacy of Beaconsfieldian views than
it had been, and it fell altogether out of sympathy
with Liberal movements. In these years there were
some important changes in its staff. Leonard Courtney,
one of its principal leader writers since 1864, and other
staunch Liberals gave place to newer men, among them
being E. D. J. Wilson, whose opinions, on Irish questions

' Correspondence of A hraham Hayward, vol. ii. p. 287.
^ Yates, Becollections and Experiences, vol. ii. p. 139.

1877-1880. 'THE TIMES' UNDER CHENEKY 335

especially, were in accord with those which, on grounds
■of principle or of expediency, were now selected for
vehement utterance in the paper. ' " The Times" seems
to have taken a turn towards fury,' Gladstone wrote in
September 1878, ' an amusing variation. There have
been few duller newspapers for the last three years, and
they seem to wish to rival Delane in his decay.' ^

Nor was Grladstone satisfied at this time with ' The
Daily News.' ' I thiak,' he said in the letter just
quoted from, ' they have often made improper admis-
sions, and do not drive the nail home as it ought to be
done by a really vigorous opposition paper, such as
" The Morning Chronicle " of Perry.' Yet from ' The
Daily News ' Gladstone and the opposition obtained all
the support that could be given, under the earnest if
somewhat cynical editorship of Frank H. Hill, by the
flowing rhetoric of Justin McCarthy, the indefatigable
partisanship of P. W. Clayden, and other assistance
from a staff in which were included William Black,
George Saintsbury, Henry W. Lucy, and many other able
writers. Perhaps it was impossible for any particular
nails to be driven home with sufficient vigour when
two of the proprietors of ' The Daily News ' were men
with as strong and diverse individualities as Samuel
Morley and Henry Labouchere. The paper had to be
made acceptable both to orthodox and zealous dissenters
and to men who regarded life as a game and politics as
only a form of gambhng.

There was bolder and, to many readers, more per-
suasive writing in ' The Daily Telegraph ' ; but ' The
Telegraph ' was now more anti-Gladstonian than ' The
Times.' With the shifting of premiers Gladstone-wor-
ship had given place to Disraeli- worship, and in Edwin
Arnold and his colleagues the Beaconsfield administra-

' Correspondence of Abraham Hayicard, vol. ii. p. 298.

336 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxit.

tion had enthusiastic supporters. Its ablest champion,
however, being both genuine and discriminating, was
' The Standard,' which, strong before, gained fresh
strength from a change in the management in 1876.

James Johnson, who, on becoming its proprietor
in 1857, had practically made a new paper of ' The
Standard,' died in 1876, apjoointing as its sole and irre-
movable controller William Henry Mudford, the son of
the old editor of ' The Courier ' and other papers, who
had for some time been a writer on its staff. Mudford
straightway proceeded to further improve the paper,
and to make it, not less honestly Conservative than
before, but too independent and consistent in its politics
to please either the timeservers or the irreconcilables of
the party. At one time, indeed, some of these irrecon-
cilables were so indignant at the plain-speaking of ' The
Standard ' that they threatened to take proceedings in
the Court of Chancer}'' in the hope of upsetting the
arrangement under which Mudford acted as trustee of
the property. The threats came to nothing, however,
and Mudford continued to edit the paper in such ways
as he deemed best for its interests and for the interests
of progressive Conservatism.- The Beaconsfield govern-
ment, while it lasted, was zealously but intelligently
supported. When Gladstone returned to power, his
measures were closely criticised, and whenever they
seemed objectionable, zealously opposed ; but Mudford's
aim was to be guided by principle, not by party whim,
and, avoiding all factiousness, to be as steady and im-
partial as he could be in enforcing the views that he
held to be patriotic.

' The Standard ' has flourished, and the party has
been well served, by perseverance in those lines. With
George Byrom Curtis as his chief assistant in the editor-
ship, Mudford has had as his principal leader writers

1876-1880. 'THE STANDARD' UNDER MUDFORD 337

T. H. S. Escott, while his health allowed, Alfred Austia,
and T. E. Kebbel, other help coming from Colonel
Brackenbury, Demetrius Boulger, Frances Power Cobbe,
Sutherland Edwards, Dr. Robert Brown, and many more,
and especially, as city editor, from Alexander Wilson, a
great authority on all matters of finance, and a fearless ex-
poser of unsafe speculations. In Hely Bowes and Dr.
Abel,' The Standard' has had Paris and Berlin correspon-
dents of exceptional ability and trustworthiness, and in
its special correspondence during and since the Russo-
Turkish war, it has shown more enterprise than even
' The Daily News.' The list of its special correspon-
dents includes the names of J. A. Cameron, who was
killed in the Soudan, Professor Palmer, who was mur-
dered by the Arabs, Frederick Boyle, and Gr. A. Henty.

An attempt to supersede ' The Standard ' had been
made by seceders from its staff, and had failed, before
Mudford took charge of it. David Morier Evans, who,
previously connected with ' The Times,' had been city
editor of ' The Morning Herald ' and ' The Standard '
since 1857, started ' The Hour' in March 1873, taking
with him Captain Hamber as political editor. The
speculation was altogether disastrous, however, and
after Evans had worried himself to death and others
had lost much money over it, it was abandoned in
1876. Another and an almost amusing venture in
Tory journalism was ' The Daily Express,' commenced
on May 1, 1877, and concluded on August 25 in the
same year. In the last number it was stated that it
had been started ' as an experiment, and with only
sufficient capital to try the experiment, whether there
was a demand for a church paper, conducted on church
principles, and designed for the perusal of churchmen.'

More fortxmate was ' The Daily Chronicle,' which
first appeared as a political penny paper on May 28,

VOL. n. z

338 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES oh. xxtv.

1877, but with noteworthy antecedents. ' The Business
and Agency Gazette ' had been started in January 1855
as a weekly sheet, containing nothing but advertisements
and given away to residents in Clerkenwell, as it was
hoped that the advertisements would defray the expenses
of publishing and yield a profit. This hope not being
realised, the little paper was in the following May con-
verted into ' The Clerkenwell News,' and sold for a
halfpenny, some scraps of local intelligence being added
to the advertisements. It was thus the first of the
London district newspapers, and in its altered form it
answered so well that in the course of the next ten
years it was gradually increased in size, furnished with
a larger quantity of news, and issued more frequently.
It appeared successively twice, thrice, four times, and
five times a week, untU in April 1866 it became a daily
paper, the price being generally a halfpenny, except
when a penny was charged for double numbers. The
title had in February 1866 been altered to ' The Clerken-
well News and London Times,' the ' London Times '
being printed in small type till the autumn of 1869. when
the ' Times ' was brought out so boldly that the pro-
prietor of ' The Times ' protested. The paper was,
therefore, re-named, and it appeared during the next
six years as ' The London Daily Chronicle and Clerken-
well News.' Through all these changes it prospered.
The charge for short advertisements being very low, it
obtained plenty of them, and had a large circulation
extending all over London, and in 1876 it was so
valuable as a commercial property that Edward Lloyd,
the founder of ' Lloyd's "Weekly NeAvspaper,' bought it
for 30,000?., with the object of further expanding it
into a rival of the regvilar newspapers already in
existence. That was done as soon as Hoe machines
could be obtained from New York and set up in the

1877-1880. THE RISE OF 'THE DAILY CHRONICLE' 339

reconstructed premises in Fleet Street ; the machines,
of an improved kind, being so efl&cient that 25,000
copies could be printed, cut, folded, and counted in an
hour. These arrangements and others that followed, in
accordance with Lloyd's resolve — that he would con-
tinue to spend upon his new enterprise whatever was
necessary during five years without stint — involved an
outlay of 125,000?. in addition to the purchase-money.
The issue justified all this boldness.

' The Daily Chronicle,' edited by Robert Whelan
Boyle, and with an adequate staff of writers, so far
adhered to its traditions that, securing plenty of adver-
tisements by continuing to insert them at a lower
charge than that made by most other daily papers, it
paid special attention to metropolitan concerns, both in
its reports of news and in its leading articles ; but, as
was shown by its special correspondence during the
Egyptian campaigns, in which Phil Robinson and
Charles WiUiams were its representatives, and on sub-
sequent occasions, it competed zealously in aU respects
with the other daily papers. Radical at starting, it has
only followed the chief current of London opinion in
opposing lines of action approved by many Radicals.

The recent turning of currents is notably illustrated
in the fortunes of one clever journal and its outcome.
' The Pall Mall Gazette ' had been conducted by Frede-
rick Greenwood with great vigour and talent during
fifteen years before the spring of 1880. It had drawn
to itself some of the best writers of ' The Saturday
Review,' which it imitated and often improved upon in
the brilliance and pungency of its well thought-out
articles on literary, scientific, artistic, and other sub-
jects, as well as on political questions. In pohtics it
was as independent, and aimed at being as impartial,
as it was in its handling of other concerns. It de-

z 2

340 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxiv.

clined to be called Conservative, and was frequently at
variance with the Tory party ; but it always regarded
with suspicion, if not with aversion, not only Gladstone
and the steady supporters of his administration between
1868 and 1874, but also its Radical critics, whether of
the school of Cobden or of the school of Mill. On all
questions of foreign policy especially it was ' anti-
Radical,' its editor's views thereon coinciding with those
of one of the ablest of his early contributors, Percy
William Smythe, afterwards Lord Strangford. Steadily
insistiQg on the observance of all our ' imperial respon-
sibilities ' in relation to other nations, to India and our
colonies, ' The Pall Mall ' on this latter ground parti-
cularly became more and more opposed to Grladstonian
opinion, and more and more in agreement with the
Beaconsfield administration. So anti- Russian, that it
was considered by many to be Turcophil, it approved
and encouraged all Lord Beaconsfield's proceedings,
and came to be recognised as the most outspoken and
thoroughgoing of the ' Jingo ' organs. In these ways
Greenwood fell out of harmony with the proprietary of
' The Pall Mall,' and when, at the time of the general
election in April 1880, which gave the Liberals a
majority of fifty over both Conservatives and Home
Rulers, the ownership of the paper was transferred
from George Smith to his son-in-law, Henry Yates
Thompson, a change of editorship became necessary.
The number for May 1 contained the announcement
that ' Mr. Frederick Greenwood, who has had the edi-
torial direction of " The Pall Mall Gazette " since the
date of its first publication till now, will not be respon-
sible for any political opinions that may appear in its
pages after to-day.' ' One short month ago we were
a discomfited little company of writers, with reek in-
tolerable smoked out of our ancient quarters,' was the

1880. THE OKIGIN OF 'THE ST. .TAMES'S GAZETTE' 341

less graceful statement made in the first number of
' The St. James's Gazette,' which Greenwood produced
on May 31.

The personal quari-el that led to the starting of a
new paper which was in all essentials a continuance of
' The Pall Mall Gazette ' with an altered title, and
•quickened to fresh energy by its competition with the
appropriator of its former name, was in itself interest-
ing to outsiders ; but more important were its political
bearings. In ' The St. James's Gazette ' Greenwood,
H. D. Traill, Adam Gielgud, and all the other able
writers whom he took with him from Northumberland
Street to Dorset Street, were as brilliant and pungent
as ever, and they were certainly more ' anti-Radical,'
which — intolerance being the rule with those who in
■our later days have arrogated to themselves the title of
Radical, and all independence in thought or action
being intolerable to them — was regarded by those they
opposed as an equivalent term to Tory. ' The St.
James's Gazette,' however, persevered in the lines it had
marked out for itself, and with signal success. It was
a trenchant, if often too indignant and ungenerous,
critic of the second Gladstone administration through
its five years' life, opposing the Conservatives as
zealously as the Liberals when it saw occasion for
doing so, and has been a powerful factor in the poli-
tical settlements and unsettlements that have taken
place or have been in process since it was started.

In the editorship of ' The PaU Mall Gazette ' Green-
wood was succeeded by John Morley, whose early
Radical work on ' The Morning Star,' when he was
a disciple of Cobden, and yet more on ' The Fort-
nightly Review,' when he was a disciple of Mill, had
marked him out as a mighty journalistic champion of
Radicalism. Even when he was writing for ' The

342 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxiv.

Saturday Review,' and not out of sympathy witli its
vigorous upholding of orthodox opinions and institu-
tions in politics and religion, Morley had been dis-
covered by MUl as a bold thinker with singular skill
in the expression of his thoughts, and Mill had helped
him in the way of enlightenment ; and when , some
fifteen years later, he became editor of ' The Pall Mall,'
his broadened experience, extended observation, and
thorough mastery of the arts of authorship, had qualified
him to be a statesman among journalists. ' The Pall
Mall ' in his hands was a vehement and forcible ex-
ponent of most of the views on home and foreign
policy, on domestic reform and international duty,
which had been put forward by Gladstone in his Mid-
lothian speeches, and by Bright, Fawcett, Chamberlain,
DLlke, and others, and to which, with Chamberlain and
Bright in the cabinet, and Fawcett and DUke holding
important posts outside it, it was reasonably expected
that due effect would be given. The new government,
however, disappointed those who had hoped most fi-om
it, especially by its despotic treatment of the Irish, its
aggravation of foreign complications, and its postpone-
ment of nearly all the reforms it was pledged to under-
take ; and it was not easy for a consistent Radical to
conduct a newspaper which was designed to be a
ministerial organ. There were other reasons, besides
his undertaking the ai'duous duties of a member of
parliament in February 1883, for Morley's retirement
from the editorship of ' The Pall Mall,' and after that,
WUliam Thomas Stead succeeding to the office, it en-
tered on a new career.

Stead had been for some years editor of ' The
Northern Echo,' an enterprising and very successful
halfpenny morning paper started in Darlington in 1869
as the first of the provincial imitators of the London

1880-1886. 'THE PALL MALL' IN NEW HANDS 343

' Echo,' before he was appointed sub-editor of ' The
Pall Mall ' imder Morley. The opinions he had arrived
at as to the proper functions and methods of journalism,
in dealing with political and all other matters, if not
altogether original or much more than revivals or
adaptations of very old-fashioned arrangements and
hitherto more approved ia the United States than in
England, were promptly introduced into ' The Pall
Mall ' as soon as he had full control over it. ' Inter-
viewing,' long common with foreign correspondents,
and cautiously adopted nearer home in such series as
' Celebrities at Home,' in ' The World,' was now freely
resorted to in the case of any politician, religionist,
social reformer, man of science, artist, tradesman, rogue,
madman, or any one else, who cared to advertise himself
or his projects or pursuits, and in whom the public
could be expected to take any interest. The skUl in
what at first they called ' the Americanisation of Eng-
lish journalism,' but what they afterwards designated
as ' the new journaUsm,' was the boast of both the
editor and the proprietor of ' The Pall Mall,' and they
boldly applied it alike to national and individual, poli-
tical and social ends, dressing out their ' interviews '
with dramatic or melodramatic, minutely accurate
or judiciously imagined details, enforcing them by
strongly-worded leading articles, and supplementing
them by specially prepared and selected columns of
news. They took credit for having, by arousing public
opinion at the suitable moment, caused General Gordon
to be sent to Khartoum, and for having brought about
other grave embarrassments in public afi'airs. They
claimed to have procured or hastened an important
change in the law for the protection of young women
and children by an elaborate combination of very ugly
facts and specious fabrications in a set of articles, un-

344 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxit.

exampled in their way, entitled ' The Maiden Tribute
of Modern Babylon.' As self- constituted censors of
public morals and reckless pursuers of private objects,
they dabbled in forthcoming questions for the divorce
court and other judicial tribunals, and were lavish in
insinuations and innuendoes when the scandalous
details they sought for were scanty or had no exist-
ence. In these and all such ways they secured for
' The Pall Mall ' a considerable reputation which,
whether the general effect was good or bad, evidently
answered the purpose of the producers ; and it must
be acknowledged that by other and less questionable
devices they increased the popularity of the paper.
There was mild precedent for some of the developments
of ' the new journaHsm ' in the account of his work-
house adventures by ' An Amateur Casual ' in one of
the earlier numbers of ' The PaU Mall,' as there had
been long before in the writings of Charles Dickens,
Henry Mayhew, and others, and long before that in
the writings of Defoe, Steele, and others ; but the
merit, such as it is, of a certain amount of originality
and novelty is due to these latest travellers in the field
of sensationalism.

' The Pall Mall Gazette ' and ' The St. James's
Gazette,' reducing their prices from twopence to a
penny in 1882, came then into more direct competition
with * The Evening Standard ' and ' The Globe,' which,
however, especially the former, aimed at supplying the
readers with a good store of late news rather than with
lengthy comments on the events of the day or more mis-
cellaneous matter. ' The Echo,' continuing to be pub-
lished at a halfpenny and doubled in size, maintained its
general character as a vigorous Radical evening journal
during several changes of proprietorship. Never a
profitable speculation in the hands of its founders, it

1874-1886. OTHER NEWSPAPER CHANGES 345

was sold by them in 1874 to Albert Grant, who in
turn soon transferred it to John Passmore Edwards, the
owner of ' The English Mechanic ' and other literary-
property. From him it passed for a short time to
Andrew Carnegie, a New York capitalist, who under-
took to control a number of ' Echoes ' ia various parts
■of the country, but from whom it agaiu reverted to
Passmore Edwards, to flourish under his management,
notwithstanding the opposition of ' The Evening News,'
which was started as a halfpenny rival to it in 1881.
Conservative in politics, but otherwise emulating in
coarser ways the policy of ' The Pall MaU Gazette,' ' The
Evening News ' looked chiefly to copious repoxis of
divorce cases and such-hke matter for popularity.

The latest of the cheap daily papers in London is
the oldest of aU in its origin. In 1882 Sir Algernon
Borthwick, some twenty years after he became its
editor, and about five years after it had become his sole
property, and when it had attained the venerable age
of a hundred and ten, reduced the price of ' The Morn-
ing Post ' from threepence to a penny, but without
altering its main characteristics as a detailer of ' fashion-
able intelligence,' combined with zealous Tory partisan-
ship. It became, indeed, under the editorship of William
Hardman, who was also chairman of the Surrey sessions,
much more of a party organ than it had formerly been,
when James Knowles, before he commenced ' The
Nineteenth Century,' and Frank Hugh O'Donnell were
among its leader writers.

Of the three high-priced weekly papers which paid
most attention to political aff'airs and had most influ-
ence in politics, ' The Spectator ' and ' The Guardian '
were, tUl 1885, if not always steady supporters of Glad-
stone's policy, steady opponents of Lord Beaconsfield's.
' The Saturday Review ' had long since become as much

346 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxiv.

of a Tory organ as its claim to be independent of party
admitted. But ' The Saturday Review ' had lost weight
after the death of its singularly able founder, John
Douglas Cook. Even its fame and its popularity had, on
other than commercial grounds, been injurious to it.
Its success as a paper containing an average of twenty
pages of original writing led to an increase of size, and
to maintain a high standard of work throughout thirty
or more pages every week was more than could be ex-
pected from Cook's successor, Philip Harwood, or from
Walter Pollock, who followed Harwood in the editor-
ship.

More important as evidence of the progress of poli-
tical opinion in London in recent times than the high-
priced weeklies, or even some of the dailies, are its
cheap weekly papers. ' The Saturday Review ' and
' The Spectator,' ' The Guardian,' ' The Economist,' and
many others of the same or kindred varieties, prepared
for particular sections of readers, are circulated among
those several sections throughout the country, and thus,
narrow as they may be in some respects, are in others-
more or less cosmopolitan. ' The Times,' moreover,
and some other London daily papers, in less proportion,
also travel far and wide for the use of readers not satis-
fied with the admirably contrived and comprehensive
journals produced in their own districts ; but the
modern competition has localised them considerably,
and very much lessened their value either as an index
or as a guide of opinion outside the metropolis. So
it is, yet more, with most of the cheap weeklies. Nearly
every country town has at least a Saturday paper of its
own, giving as much general information and criticism
as its subscribers care for or have not easy access to
from other sources. In the old days, when there were
few or none such, the cheap ' Lloyd's,' the costlier

1874-1886. CHANGES IN THE WEEKLY PAPERS 347

' Reynolds's,' and, before them, the yet costlier * Weekly
Dispatch,' had, for those times, enormous circulation
and immense influence ; and relics of these yet remain,
though it is significant that the penny London paper
which has by far the largest provincial sale is ' The
Weekly Budget,' hardly heard of in London, and con-
sisting chiefly of fiction, but with a large assortment of
news items, judiciously collected and strung together,
with hardly any comment and as little political bias as
possible. The extension of political journalism has
caused, and is continuing a complete revolution which,
with one or two exceptions, affects the cheap weekly
press of London more than any other sort of newspaper
property. One consequence of the change is that papers
of this sort now more exclusively and exactly than
before reflect and guide, or should reflect and guide,
the opinion of Londoners, and especially of the working
classes. Their importance may be inferred from the
fact that then' aggregate circulation during the past few
years has been scarcely less than a million and a half a
week.

Among these cheap papers ' Lloyd's Weekly News '
takes precedence, both as the first to be sold for a
penny and as, partly on that account, the one with by
far the largest circulation. Though Douglas Jerrold
edited it from 1852 till his death in 1857, ' Lloyd's '
only attempted to give a few columns of smart original
writing as spice to a carefully prepared epitome of the
week's news, with fuller reports of the latest information
for Sunday reading ; and when Blanchard Jerrold fol-
lowed his father as editor, with Thomas Catling soon
afterwards as sub-editor, yet more attention was paid to
news than to political guidance. Before Catling suc-
ceeded to the chief control, experience had proved that
readers of ' Lloyd's ' were well content to have as much

348 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxtt,

interesting information about recent events as could be
crowded into the closely printed pages, with but a
small mixture of political teaching, Radical as far as it
went. ' Lloyd's ' is pre-eminently a popular paper of
news, and as such has achieved a success unparalleled
in its way.

It has been otherwise with ' Reynolds's Newspaper,'
which was started in 1850 as a fourpenny record of
social and political scandals, set forth in such detail and
with such comments as might prejudice aristocratic
institutions with many readers and amuse all. It was
reduced in price to a penny, not so soon as 'Lloyd's,'
but soon enough to secure a very large circulation in
London, and yet more in the north of England, where
Chartist opinions held their ground, and where it
acquired an authority which it has since maintained.
Styling itself ' democratic,' and aiming always at more
Radical changes than have been included in any recog-
nised Radical programme, it is the successor of ' Cob-
bett's Register ' and ' The Poor Man's Guardian ' rather
than of either Leigh Hunt's or Albany Fonblanque's
' Examiner,' and, since the rise of English Socialism, it
has been more in sympathy with the Social Democratic
Federation than "wdth any less revolutionary movement.
Not giving so comprehensive a summary of general
news as is furnished by ' Lloyd's,' but affording ampler
space to the occurrences supporting its arguments, and
propounding those arguments in forcibly written arti-
cles, in which rhetoric is oftener employed than logic
and economical laws are made subservient to sentiment,
' Reynolds's ' is a formidable spokesman for the most
irreconcilable portions of the community.

Of ' The "Weekly Dispatch ' a somewhat fuller
account may be given. This famous promoter of
Radicalism in the days of James Harmer and William

1874-1886. THE LONDON SUNDAY PAPERS 349

Johnson Fox had allowed itself to be far outstripped
by ' Lloyd's ' and ' Reynolds's,' before January 1869,
when its price was reduced from fivepence to twopence,
and neither that change nor the further lowering of
price to a penny in August 1870 helped it to regain
its ground under careless management. It was at a
very low ebb when Ashton Wentworth Dilke bought it
and, with the first week of 1875, began to reconstruct
it as an honest and enterprising working-class paper.
Its altered quality was soon discovered, and it rose so
rapidly in circulation that fresh offices had to be taken
and new machinery provided. Conducting it himself
for a year and a half, Dilke placed the editorship in
other hands in the summer of 1876 ; but he continued
to take a close and constant interest in its progress,
writing much for it at times, and either sanctioning or
suggesting all the attempts that were made to improve
it, until his death on March 12, 1883, when his age
was only thirty-three. It was with his concurrence
that ' The Dispatch ' was throughout ten years a
thoroughly independent exponent of advanced Radical
opinions, bound to no party, but zealous in supporting
all that it approved and criticising aU it saw reason to
object to in the policy of the Liberal leaders as well as
of others, and also seeking to join with its political
writing as much literary and other matter as there was
room for in the space not required for the record of
each week's news. Its aims were in advance of any
hitherto proposed for a penny weekly paper, and that
they were not in vain was shown by the greatly increased
circulation and influence of ' The Dispatch.'

Aiming especially to be an adequate working-class
journal, ' The Dispatch ' carefully followed and discussed
the various trades union and other industrial questions
of the day in their political and economical relations,

350 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxiv.

commending or blaming as a spirit of fairness seemed
to require, and gaining respect and influence by its
impartiality. The conditions of various trades and of
those employed in them, in town and country, and the
need or chances of amelioration by effort on the part of
the workers themselves or by legislative action, were
discussed in detail by competent writers, and particular
attention was paid to the various political questions in
which the working classes were particularly concerned ;
among them London government and financial reform,
ecclesiastical abuses, and amendment of the House of
Lords. Of lighter sort, and with fictitious colouring,
but all intended to call attention to remediable defects
in our social arrangements, were long series of sketches
by George R. Sims, James Runciman, Richard Dowling,
Arthur Sketchley, George Manville Fenn, and many
others ; and among the leader writers were James Allan-
son Picton, Colonel Robert D. Osborn, Eliza Orme,
John Macdonald, Thomas Purnell, and Robert Williams,
to whom must be added as a contributor of exceptional
service Mrs. EmUy Crawford, who sent every week
from Paris a chronicle and exposition of French politics,
more serious in its Radical purport than her lively com-
munications to ' Truth.'

' The Dispatch ' was an outspoken critic of all the
proceedings of the Beaconsfield government, and it
criticised as boldly all the proceedings of the Gladstone
administration that followed. It protested, at starting,
against the great preponderance of Whigs in the cabinet
formed after the general election of 1880 had given so
clear a ' mandate ' in favour of Radical reforms ; and it
protested afterwards persistently against the lack or
insufficiency of remedial domestic legislation, against
the perversion of authority by enforcing a mischievous
and disastrous despotism in Ireland instead of accord-

1876-1886. 'THE WEEKLY DISPATCH' 351

ing to its people the full measure of local government
and complete independence as regards their own aifairs
to which they were entitled and with which they might
then have been satisfied, and — along with much else to
the same or like intent — against the reckless blundering
incident to all our dealings with Egypt and the carry-
ing on of the war in the Soudan. While the Reform
Bills of 1884 and 1885 were in progress, it pointed out
from week to week what it considered to be grave
errors and pernicious defects in them, and warned the
Radicals who applauded them of the heavy misfortunes
which, as consequences of those errors and defects, have
since befallen them. ' The Representation of the People
Bill,' as it said, ' left whole sections of the community,
though fully entitled to the franchise, without any place
in the representative machinery, and gave an inordinate
amount of political power to " the classes," which Mr.
Gladstone was not then as anxious as he is now to put
in due subordination to " the masses." The Redistri-
bution of Seats Bill, abolishing the old three-cornered
constituencies, which had not worked at all well as an
experiment, divided the entire country, with a few
exceptions, into single-member constituencies, approxi-
mately but not exactly equal in size, in each of which
a bare majority of voters could elect its member, leaving
quite unrepresented a minority that might be scarcely
less than half of the whole, and thus leaving vast
numbers of capable citizens in the aggregate of the con-
stituencies without any spokesmen in parliament.' ^

The ten years' heresy of ' The Dispatch,' in ven-
turing to claim for Radicals the right of thinking and
acting for themselves and in urging them to make no
more surrender of their independence than an honest
opportunism prescribes, culminated in its opposition to

^ Weekly Dispatch, January 30, 1887.

352 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxit.

the Irish Home Rule and Land Purchase Bills brought
forward by Gladstone in 1886. It had all along insisted,
as Bright, Mill, Fawcett, and many others had done, on
complete justice, political and social, being rendered to
the Irish people, and it reiterated this view during the
general election of 1885. It deprecated, however, the
sudden adoption by the Gladstonians of a policy they
had hitherto condemned and gave reasons for regarding
that policy as impolitic, inexpedient, and injurious alike
to the Irish and the English. It looked with distrust
on the projects of the third Gladstonian administration,
and when those projects, defeated in parliament, led to
another general election, it objected to such a 'mandate'
being given by the constituencies to Gladstone as would
empower him to deal with Irish and all other affairs,
during the lifetime of the parliament elected as his echo,
in any way he chose. ' We do not for a moment doubt,'
it said, ' that Mr. Gladstone's conversion to Home Rule
was genuine, and as conscientious as may be his conver-
sion a year or more hence to disestablishment of the
Church or abolition of the House of Lords, should either
of these courses be necessary means to his acquisition
or retention of power. Mr. Gladstone is always genuine
and conscientious in adopting such views of national
policy as he thinks the majority of the nation — that is,
of the electorate — desires ; but, with all respect be it
said, when he has decided that the nation — ^that is, the
electorate — wishes a course to be taken, he claims to
himself the right of shaping this course in ways satis-
factory to his own mind.' ^ To allowing any one,
however popular, and with whatever credentials, to as-
sume such a position of siipremacy ' The Dispatch '
objected, on general even more than on special grounds,
the summing up of which may be quoted to show the

' Weekly Dispatch, January 30, 1887.

1876-1886. THE RADICALISM OF 'THE DISPATCH' 353

attitude taken up by the paper, between 1876 and 1886,
as regards Radical politics at large.

' Tlie very life of Radicalism,' it was said, ' consists
in free inquiry and independence of tlxoiight. The
Radicalism that rejects these may be excused, but it is
ignorant ; and until a better rule prevails, until we
reach such a stage of political education as enables the
people to think intelligently and discriminatingly for
themselves instead of accepting their opinions ready
made from any one else, Radicalism will be in a bad
way. The great weakness of democracy is that it
makes easy the path of demagogues. Monarchs and
oligarchs generally know their own minds, and, unless
they are shams and not worthy even to bear such con-
temptible titles as those of monarchs and oligarchs,
contrive to get pretty much what they wish for. But
democrats are many-minded, and, without such wide
intelligence as helps them to keep their impulses, how-
ever generous, in check, and by mutual guidance to
combine to reach safe ends by safe means, they are
fickle and rash, and in peril at every turn of being mis-
led by demagogues, who may be none the less mis-
leading because their zeal is unselfish and they are as
amiable as clever. A demagogue need not be a bad
man — ^he may be an altogether estimable man in many
respects ; but, as a demagogue, he cannot fail to be mis-
chievous. The ruin of all the old democracies was in
the opportunity they allowed to demagogues, well-
meaning or ill-meaning, to rise to power, with a vox
popuU as their mandate, and then to mould the popular
will into compliance with their own. Democratic insti-
tutions have been of such slow growth in England, and
are still so &.r short of completeness, that we need be in
no fear yet of their downfall. But we can hinder or
hasten on their progress according to the use to which
VOL. n. A A

354 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxiv.

we allow the powers we are acquiring to be put. We
Eadicals make merry, and also express some alarm,
about the Tory democracy that had Disraeli for its
apostle a generation ago, and now has Lord Randolph
Churchill ; and there is reason both for our alarm and
for our merriment. But how about ourselves and our
own aspirations after a truer democracy ? The prospects
of Radicalism, which is or should be synonymous with
true democracy, cannot be bright so long as it consents
to make anything like a demagogue of even the best
and wisest man living — as some consider that Mr,
Grladstone is.' ^

The utterance of such sentiments, Ashton Dilke
being dead, was not thought helpful to the Gladstonian
scheme for dealing with Irish or other affairs, and a
new editor was found for ' The Weekly Dispatch '
in January 1887.

Three other cheap Sunday papers of long standing
need only be briefly referred to, as whatever political
importance they formerly had has dwindled away. ' The
Weekly Times,' most resembling ' The Weekly Dispatch'
in its general plan, had considerable influence for many
years after it was started in 1847, circulating extensively
in the provinces before the competition of local journals
became serious. It was bought in 1884 by Passmore
Edwards, who soon afterwards amalgamated it with
' The Weekly Echo,' an ambitious but unsuccessful
Sunday paper, which had been commenced while ' The
Echo ' was in the hands to which he had transferred it;
and since then the combination has appeared as 'The
Weekly Times and Echo.' ' The News of the World,'
once famous also, has for some time contained little more
than selections from the news supplied by the daily
papers. ' The Sunday Times,' Radical and influential

' Weekly Dispatch, January 30, 1887.

1876-1886. OTHER SUNDAY PAPERS 365

under the management of Daniel Whittle Harvey and
some of his successors, lost ground on its becoming a
Conservative oi'gan, and was further injured by the se-
cession of many of its writers to ' The People ' when
that journal was founded in October 1881.

With the exception of ' England ' — a Saturday mis-
cellany, which appeared in April 1880 as 'the only
national and Conservative weekly newspaper for all
classes,' and which undertook to propound the views
of Ashmead Bartlett and his brother William Burdett-
Coutts, on foreign and domestic affairs, and latterly to
be the special organ of the Primrose League as well as
of the Fair Trade League — ' The People ' is the only
recently started exponent of Tory opinions through the
cheap weekly press. An offshoot of ' The Globe,' and
edited at first by Dr, Sebastian Evans, it has judiciously
kept its partisanship within narrow bounds. Limiting
its political writing to a cohimn or two each week, it
has followed the lead of ' The Weekly Dispatch ' in
devoting much space to lively articles on social and
general subjects, with, however, a larger proportion of
fiction. Issuing a novel by Zola, and other novels by
WUkie Collins, Grant Allen, and others, its plan has
been rather to furnish a large budget of readable matter
for Sunday amusement, iucluding all the important
news of the week, than much political guidance.

For such guidance in Tory lines Londoners have to
look chiefly to the high-priced weeklies, among which
' The Observer ' holds a place of its own as the only
Sunday paper dealing with the day's news nearly as
fuUy and exclusively as the other six days' news is
dealt with by the weekday morning journals, and to
those morning journals. In the latter many note-
worthy changes were brought about by the political
crisis that may be considered as having begun in

A A 2

356 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. ixrv.

1880 and as not yet concluded ; but witt these, for the
most part, newspaper readers are too familiar for it to
be necessary to make much mention of them,

' The Times,' having given a hearty support to
nearly all the measures of Lord Beaconsfield's govern-
ment, was a severe critic, and often a violent opponent
of the Gladstone administration. ' It was a great point
to secure " The Times," ' wrote Abraham Hay ward on
April 24, 1880, on the morning after he had paid a
night visit to the new premier, just returned from
Windsor with authority to form a new cabinet ; ' so,
after being told the exact state of things, I went off in
the middle of the night to the " Times " office, where
I saw Chenery, the editor, an intimate friend of mine,
and the first leading article of to-day was the result.'

But Hayward's experiments as a diplomatist between
friends in Downing Street and friends in Printing
House Square were not so successful as those of
Greville and others in former days. The diplomats,
and the ministers, and the editors, and the papers
themselves, were all different. Chenery did not see his
way to enter into any alliance with Gladstone, even if
such had been sought from him. On all the great
questions at issue ' The Times ' only supported the
government when both were in the wrong. It en-
couraged meddling in Egypt and elsewhere, coercion
in Ireland, postponement of domestic reforms, and, -with
few exceptions, used all its influence in promoting mis-

' Gorrespondence of Abraham Hayward, vol. ii. p. 315. Another amusing
extract from this book (vol. ii. p. 320), pointing to one line of deteriora-
tion in The Times, may here be quoted. ' When Mrs. Langtry made her
private dibut,' we are told, the date being December 1881, ' the late Mr.
Chenery expressed his relief at discovering that Mr. Hayward possessed
a ticket for the perfoimance, and was willing to write a notice of it. The
critique was short and wisely moderate ; but it struck the keynote which
the press of two countries at once took up.'

1880-1886. CHANGES IN 'THE TIMES' 357

chievous undertakings everywhere ; but it gave no help
to any of the Radical movements that Gladstone had
sought and obtained authority from the constituencies
to further. When Chenexy died, on February 11, 1884,
and George Earle Buckle succeeded to the editorship,
there was no change in the general policy of ' The
Times.' Such change as ensued showed itself espe-
cially in 1886, when the Gladstonian assent to the
Home Rule demands of the parliamentary leaders of
the Irish Nationalist party led to a series of violent
and vindictive attacks on Gladstonians, as well as on
all who were regarded as associated with them, culmi-
nating in what was alleged to be a convincing exposure
of the enormities of ' ParneUism and Crime.' If ' The
Times ' was right in its main contention, there were
many who thought that the force of its arguments was
weakened by the passionate vehemence of their present-
ment. In this, however, ' The Times ' only adhered to
its traditional policy.

While the same cause of offence to all who were
not able to follow Gladstone in his conversion to Home
Rule merely provided ' The Standard ' and ' The Morn-
ing Post ' with fresh material for upholding Conserva-
tive opinions, it strengthened ' The Daily Telegraph '
in the abandonment of Liberalism of which it had
given signs long before ; and it induced ' The Daily
Chronicle ' to recognise as leaders Joseph Chamberlain
and Lord Hartington rather than Gladstone and John
Morley. ' The Daily News ' was left to stand alone
among the London morning papers as the Gladstonian
champion, and its championship was not deemed ade-
quate.

' The Daily News ' had surpassed all its rivals, as
heretofore, by its special corresj)ondence during the
Egyptian and the Soudanese campaigns, throughout

358 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xkiy,

which John Macdonald was its chief representative ; but
it had suffered in some resjDects through the zeal shown
by it in foreign enterprises, not only in war time but
on all occasions, great or small, which could afford
material for the smart writing of the clever men in its
employ. Of those men Archibald Forbes was but the
most conspicuous among several. They were men too
serviceable to be dispensed with, and to be allowed to
pass out of reach when opj)ortunity might arise for
them to make the use of their pens for which they were
best fitted. It was therefore necessary to find work of
some sort for them, and the work was found in ways not
altogether helpful to the jiaper. Forbes, for instance,
was more at home on a battle-field than at a meeting
of the British Association ; and though, if sent to
Ireland to describe a street riot, he might be trusted
to furnish a long and graphic account of all its in-
cidents, there was more risk of inaccuracies in such
a narrative being detected than there would be if his
theme were some foreign occurrence witnessed by few
Englishmen, or none, besides himself. There was
waste of power, to say the least, in much of the skilful
writing that appeared in ' The Daily News,' and along
with this there was scanting of the more prosaic work
of leader writing, requiring, as it does, such intimate
knowledge of the complicated machinery of politics, and
such thoughtful observation of current affairs, as those
who are special correspondents by profession cannot be-
expected to have taste or training for. From these and
other causes ' The Daily News,' deservedly popular in
war time, was not successful as the main exponent and
promoter, in the London press, of the G-ladstonian
policy to which it was loyal in intention. As a re-
volution of some sort was considered necessary, Frank
Hill was summarily dismissed early in 1886 from the

1880-1886. CHANGES IN 'THE DAILY NEWS' 359

editorship lie had long held with dignity. "With him
went Justin McCarthy and some other of his old
writers. Henry Lucy, who succeeded him, introduced
certain novelties into the paper, but with so little advan-
tage that a year's experience proved the expediency of
another change.

The time had passed, however, foi* any rearrange-
ments of editors or writers on any of the London
papers to restore or to maintain for them their old suj)re-
macy. Provincial journalism, which had been steadily
growing in every way, took a new start during the
time of the Russo-Turkish war. All mechanical
obstacles to its progress had been removed before
then, and the paths were clear for their full develop-
ment so soon as public questions of absorbing interest
arose on which provincial journalists, as capable in
most respects as the London journalists, could write
with clearer apprehension of local opinion, and in truer
sympathy with it. The Russo-Turkish war and its
connection with English politics were only part, and
foremost in time, of those modern questions. Our
enterprises in Afghanistan, in South Africa, in Egjrpt
and elsewhere, were of the same sort. The excitement
incident to the procuring of the Reform Acts of 1885,
and all the discussion of local reforms and of general
reforms with special bearings in divers localities, bore
lasting effects. The fresh controversy that sprang up
concerning Irish grievances, no new subjects but newly
stated, and the various inferences drawn therefrom as
regards self-government, land law amendment, and
much else, constituted the latest, thus far, and the
most disturbing of the forces by which much that was
formerly imperial in journalism has been localised,
and by which provuicial journalism, fully prepared for
the growth, has come to be in many respects imperial

360 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxiv.

thus depriving metroj)olitan journalism of its old
claim to be the only imperial journalism, but not
debarring it from behig, if right use is made of the
altered conditions, as serviceable and as dignified as
heretofore.

The progress of provincial journalism in recent times
is very remarkable, and eminently suggestive. A proper
setting forth of its history, however, would involve not
only a detailed account of some dozens of separate enter-
prises, but also a careful inquiry into the causes and
issues of the wide diflferences of opinion which have
arisen in various parts of the country ; and it may not be
attempted here. Country newspapers had been grow-
ing and multiplymg, during nearly two centuries, as
small weekly sheets, before the removal of the stamp
duty and the paper duty cleared the way for mighty
developments springing from many sources of national
expansion which fiscal burdens could only hinder ; and
their history throughout the past generation, if scarcely
more interesting, is vastly more important than that of
the previous six or seven generations. Both interest
and importance have increased, moreover, since 1874.
In the lines of farther advance made by metropolitan
journalism provincial journalism has shared ; and
where that has lost ground, it has gained in most
respects.

In the south of England, where, with a few excep-
tions, country newspapers were first in the field, they
have, with a few exceptions, been laggard in their
progress. This, as regards the home counties, is
chiefly due to the predominance of London and the
convenience of commimication with it. Brighton has
four daily papers and nearly a dozen others, but it is
so much of a suburb of London that its local j ournalism
is rather suburban than provincial ; and the same may

1874-1886. PROGRESS OF COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS 361

be said, "with modifications, concerning some hundreds
of other country towns and their newspapers. There
is more room for independence, and greater need of it,
farther off, as in Bristol, where ' The Western Daily Press '
led the way in 1858 and, under Peter Stewart Macliver,
has been a vigorous exponent of Radical opinion as
well as a prosperous journal, competing in the west of
England with two formidable daily rivals, the Liberal
' Bristol Mercury ' and the Conservative ' Bristol Times,'
along with a crowd of weeklies and some other dailies,
among them the Liberal ' Bath Herald.'

Birmingham, again, and more conspicuously, as
' the metropolis of the Midlands,' has become a busy
centre of newspaper activity. Its ' Gazette,' after more
than sixty years' hfe as a weekly, began in 1862 to be
the daily organ of Conservatism for the squires and
farmers in the district ; and its ' Daily Post,' dating
from 1857, is only the foremost of a great company of
journals, daily and weekly, which has sustained and
extended the political life of ' the black country ' and
its surroundings. Edited for some time by George
Dawson, ' The Birmingham Daily Post ' h[is both
interpreted and educated the temper of this thriving
and enterprising part of England during the past
quarter of a century ; shown alike in the boldness and
thoroughness A\'ith which its municipal institutions
have been contrived, and in the zeal with which it has
applied itself to political reforms, under the direction of
men like John Bright and Joseph Chamberlain.

The pioneers of provincial journalism in its most
vigorous stage are to be found, however, farther north.
Both ' The Manchester Guardian ' and ' The Manchester
Examiner ' were of great influence before they were
converted into daily papers m 1855. ' The Guardian '
was an outcome of the agitation for popular rio-hts

362 ANTIQUITIES AND NO^rELTIES ch. xxiv.

which had the Peterloo massacre for one of its incidents
and, long edited by Jeremiah Garnett and with John
Edward Taylor for its principal proprietor, it advanced
with the times. ' The Examiner,' yet more Radical
in later years, was an outcome of the anti-corn-law
movement, and in it Alexander Ireland, Henry Dunck-
ley, and others gave forcible utterance to the views of
Cobden and Bright. The Lancashire Conservatives, at
the same time, have their ' Manchester Courier,' and
also their ' Liverpool Courier,' both altered from weekly
to daily papers in 1863. The Liberal ' Liverpool Mer-
cury,' edited by John Lovell, is older, and ' The Liver-
pool Daily Post ' is yet older and more Liberal, having
for its editor Edward Richard Russell. In Lancashire
alone more than two dozen daily papers are now pub-
lished, at least half of them, however, being halfpenny
sheets, designed rather to provide their readers with
afternoon news than with political guidance.

Yorkshire and the more northern counties, with,
their great manufacturing and mining populations, are
as well supplied, the Liberals having their ' Leeds
Mercury,' long edited by Thomas Wemyss Reid,
their ' Newcastle Chronicle,' the property of Joseph
Cowen, their ' Sheffield Independent,' their ' Bradford
Observer,' and their ' York Herald,' with some others,
and the Conservatives their ' Yorkshire Post,' and
' Sheffield Daily Telegraph,' and ' Newcastle DaUy
Journal.' In Scotland, too, though it has only twenty
daily papers to compare with the hundred and fifty of
England and Wales, national as well as local politics
are worthily represented by the Liberal ' Scotsman,'
' Glasgow Herald,' ' Dundee Advertiser,' and, oldest of
all, ' North British Mail,' and by the Conservative
' Edinburgh Courant ' and ' Glasgow News.'

It is noteworthy that — with a few exceptions, the

1874-1886. POLITICS IN COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS 363

chief being ' The Sheffield Daily Telegraph,' which
owes much of its success to Sir WUliam Leng, and
' The Manchester Courier ' — the leading country papers
are of varying shades of Liberalism, most of them,
indeed, having been Radical at starting. They were
commenced or developed from weekly origmals, to en-
courage local demands for reforms of general import-
ance, but for which special local needs arose ; and their
prosperity, otherwise unattainable, has been largely
aided by the energy they have shown ia dealing with
strictly local concerns, and also in supplying their
readers with ample information on aU general affairs,
apart from politics. Their greatest achievements con-
sisted, for some time, in the estabhshment of branches
in London, where their own representatives procured
for them special reports of parliamentary proceedings
and other matter in abundance, all of which, as a rule,
was sent down by telegraph, so as to be ready for
publication in the country towns quite as early as the
similar reports prepared for the London papers could
appear in them ; but the success resulting from this
enterprise soon led to bolder exploits. In war time
and other emergencies some of the provincial journals
have employed their own correspondents, and have
received from them as full and authentic accounts of
far-off occurrences as have been obtained by any but
the most painstaking of the metropolitan journals. In
such ways they have rivalled the older London dailies
as general newspapers, and having reached that level,
they have found it easy to outstrip their London rivals
as leaders, for and in their own districts, of opinion on
general as well as local affairs.

This later stage, in which many of the weekly
country papers have shared to a large extent the func-
tions of the dailies, was reached about the time of the

364 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES oh. xxit,

general election of 1874. The return of Conservative
members for a great many constituencies that it was
considered, even under the franchise then in force,
should have been represented by Liberals, aroused
widespread feelings of discontent which, leading to
fresh political organisations, first in Birmingham, and
then in various other parts of the country, led also and
as a branch of the same movement to the quickening of
political energy in, and by, the newspapers. Through-
out the six years of the Beaconsfield administration all
the Liberal journals that were not content to be mere
local news-sheets were keen critics and zealous instruc-
tors ; and to them in large measure, and far more than
to the London journals, must be attributed the astound-
ing result of the general election of 1880 when Liberals
of all shades combined in overthrowing the Tory
government. That the combination was not a firm
union, however, was apparent even before the victory
was won ; and before the Gladstone administration had
been formed there were signs of division among the
Liberals, shown more plainly in the provincial than in
the metropolitan newspapers.

All the great questions brought prominently before
the public between 1880 and 1885 — touchiag both the
government's foreign policy, and especially its occupa-
tion of Egypt, its treatment of Arabi Pasha, and its
reckless blunderings in the Soudan, and also its domestic
policy, especially its despotic dealings with the Irish —
provoked more outspoken and more various criticism
from those country newspapers that were not pledged
to abject subservience than from the Liberal London
papers. There was almost a truce while the Parlia-
mentary Franchise Bill and the Redistribution of Seats
Bill were being discussed and passed, all sections of
Liberals being anxious for the promised reforms, and

1874-1886. POLITICS IN COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS 365

not many of them looking critically into the details of
the measures or being desirous of any improvements
upon the plans adopted by Gladstone and Chamberlain
and their influential friends. Then, however, the truce
ended. In anticipation of the general election of 1885
the Liberal country papers divided into clearly marked
out factions, some adhering to the leadership of Glad-
stone, with Lord Hartington as his probable successor,
and claiming to speak for the moderate Liberals, others
siding with Chamberlain and the advocates of extensive
reforms in England and of just dealings with the Irish.
The lines of division continued afterwards without
much change, although there was a considerable shuf-
fling of leaders, and with no more deterioration of
quality than is inevitable to the setting of sentiment
before principle, and to such a new reading of the old
adage, ' Measures, not men,' a.s assumes that men who
promise pleasant measures may be trusted to keep their
word.

The altered conditions under which the long stand-
ing Irish problem was presented to the consideration of
the English people in the early part of 1886, alienated
by far the larger part of the London press from the
Liberalism that made loyalty to Gladstone the chief if
not the only clause in its creed. On the other hand
they greatly strengthened the Gladstonian following in
the provincial press, and by this process Irish jour-
nalism, for the first time in our history, was brought
into close association with English journalism, if not
made actually a part of it.

Until 1880, or thereabouts, the popular, as distin-
guished from the official, journalism of Ireland was
almost foreign in its character. ' The Irish Times,'
which, according to its programme, has been, since it
was established in 1859, ' a Protestant, Liberal- Conser-

366 ANTIQUITIES AND NOVELTIES ch. xxit.

vative, or, in other words, independent journal,' was by-
most people regarded in England as a sufficient ex-
ponent and champion of English rule in Ireland under
successive viceroys and chief secretaries employed as
ministers of the crown; and to Conservatives who
were not satisfied with ' The Irish Times,' ' The
Dublin Daily Express,' and such other papers as
' The Cork Constitution ' and ' The Belfast News-
letter,' offered more consistent Toryism. In Ulster
' The Northern Whig ' was always Liberal, according
to the English use of the term ; but there were not
many other Liberal newspapers in Ireland. ' The
Freeman's Journal,' with Edward Dwyer Gray as its
editor, and, as the chief of the weekly papers, ' The
Nation,' edited by T. D. Sullivan, with many others of
less note but great influence, were till lately in such
antagonism to the predominant feeling of all English
parties about Ireland, that they were regarded as alien
publications. In so far as they were read at all in
England, they were read, even by Liberals, with horror
and resentment, and, if recognised as in any way repre-
sentative of national opinion in Ireland, they were re-
garded for that reason as all the more dangerous and
reprehensible. Had they been differently read and re-
garded, and had they been taken at their real worth by
English Liberals in former days, some of the political
troubles of these later days might have been avoided.

In Ireland there were in 1866 only 15 daily and
183 weekly papers, some being class organs and local
sheets of very limited circulation. The rest of the
United Eingdom had, also including many publications
of small account, 171 newspapers published every day,
and 1,806 published once a week or oftener, 21 of the
former and 435 of the latter being issued in London.^

^ Mitchell's Newspaper Press Directory for 1887.

567

CHAPTER XXV.

NOWADAYS.
1887.

The conditions and methods of English journalism
have varied immensely and continuously since 1621
when Nathaniel Butter produced his ' Weekly News,'
but nearly all the more important changes wrought
during the past eight generations have been permanent
in spite of valuation. The journalism of to-day is a
development, or an aggregate of developments, and no
new change that may happen is likely to be more
than a modification of the arrangements now in force.
These therefore are worth taking account of.

It is in the mechanical arrangements of newspapers
that the steadiest progress has been made. Types and
the processes of type-setting have not been much altered ;
paper and printers' ink are only different in quality
from what they were in the middle ages ; and even
the modern system of printing is but an expansion of
the system adopted centuries ago. This expansion
however, has been wonderful. A double sheet of ' The
Times,' containing about a hundred times as much
matter as a sheet of Butter's ' Weekly News,' can now
be turned out in fewer hours, and a thousand copies of
the new can be issued more quickly and with hardly
more manual labour than a dozen of the old. Various
ingenious devices, before and since the invention of the

368 NOWADAYS CH. xxt.

steam engine, and especially the steam engine itself and
its applications, have helped us to all this, and to other
advantages both in the distribution of newspapers and
in the collection as well as distribution of news to be
given in them, while further help in many ways and of
immense value has come from the electric telegraph and
other extensions and teachings of science. The whole
mechanism of newspapers has been vastly improved
during the past two and a half centuries, and especially
during the past half-century.

Hardly less remarkable has been the change in the
position of newspaper producers — of the proprietors and
capitaHsts chiefly, but also of the editors and writers.
Butter was at once the John Walter and the John Thad-
deus Delane of James I.'s days, but there was not much
resemblance, save in their common humanity and in
their connection with newspapers, between Butter and
Walter, or even between Butter and Delane. In lieu
of the shillings that Butter laboriously earned, at the
risk of imprisonment by the Star Chamber, many of his
successors amass thousands of pounds, and are great
landowners and members of parliament ; and in lieu of
the few small pages of straggling news ' taken out of
the High Dutch ' that he offered to his readers at un-
certain intervals, whenever he was allowed or able to pub-
lish a pamphlet, his other successors are now required
each day, not only to tell their readers what is being
done in every part of the world, but also to instruct
them in every imaginable line of thought and action.
It is not easy to conceive how newspapers can make much
more progress than they have already made, either as
business concerns or as guides of public opinion.

Newspapers, if they are meant to prosper and to be
really useful to the public, are and must be business
concerns almost before anything else. Proprietors,

1887. NEWSPAPERS AS BUSINESS CONCERNS 369

editors, and writers alike may be philanthropists and
enthusiasts, and, if they have not somewhat more than
the average amount of philanthropy or enthusiasm, they
are hardly likely to pursue any of these callings of their
own accord, though they may be driven into them by
force of circumstances. It is by no means rare, more-
over, for philanthropy, genuine or spurious, strong
political partisanship or zealous propagandism of some
sort, to be the dominating motive for the taking up of
newspaper business of one kind or another, and en-
thusiasm, healthy or unhealthy in its promptings and
leanings, is often needed for the facing of difficulties
that would deter men of more sober temperament. But
these are the complements, if not the exceptions, of
newspaper enterprise, which, if it is to fare well and be
of lasting benefit, must be entered upon and carried
through in the ordinary way of business. It may be
thought, indeed, that in some newspaper enterprise of
the present day there is too much, rather than too little,
of the prosaic commercial spirit. The community
suffers, though the individuals connected with it may
gain, when a paper is 'worked' for money- making
purposes alone, like a shop, or a factory, or a patent
medicine. But this need not and does not very often
happen. Journalists of all grades, from the penny-a-
liner to the capitahst manager, claim to do their work
and do it best, in the spirit of a professional man rather
than of a tradesman — of the preacher, the physician, or
the soldier, who is only honest when he proves himself
' worthy of his hire.'

The absolute freedom of the press that has been
gradually achieved has brought what may be some dis-
advantages along with its many^ advantages. In this
age of cheap newspapers and of universal demand for
them, a mild Libel Act and a few easy rules as regards

VOL. II. B B

370 NOWADAYS OH. xxv.

registration, meant to be of use in enforcing it, are nearly
all that any one can regard as standing in the way
of complete liberty, which may be license, in the publi-
cation of anything that producers can sell and buyers
choose to consume. The results of this removal of
restraints have amply confirmed the arguments of the
reformers, of Burke, Erskine, and Fox in one age, of
Mill, Cobden, and Bright in another. Sedition, blas-
phemy, scurrility, and immorality, if they have not been
quite kept out of newspapers, have dwindled down and
have lost all their force now that enlightened public
opinion has substituted a new censorship for that of the
old benighted tyranny. Such unwholesome journalism
as once flourished in spite of arbitrary laws and
vicious restraints has been rendered insignificant by the
freedom that has enabled wholesome journalism to grow
so plentifully as almost to cover the field. Unwhole-
some growths remain, however, and some unhealthy
influences are apparent in nearly all newspapers. Stray
murmurs are stUl heard against the liberty under which
the journalism the murmurers object to is allowed to
exist ; and where, as in Ireland even now, their views
are shared by the authorities, the attempts to enforce
them have most cruel and mischievous efi^ects. Louder
complaint, moreover, is made by others who, without
going so far as to call upon the legislature to suppress
the journalism that is obnoxious to them, hold the
journalists and the newspaper proprietors responsible
for it. These complainers may be reminded that, with
no more exceptions than serve to prove the rule, only
such journalism is provided as there is a market for.
If it is unpleasant to many that there should be sur-
vivals of the old Monmouth Street and Holywell Street
literature, that the betting- ring and other adjuncts of
' sport ' should have organs of their own in the press

1887. FREE TRADE IN JOURNALISM 371

that loatlisome police cases and law cases should be
detailed by respectable newspapers for family reading, and
so forth, these things are only as they are because so many
newspaper readers require journalism of the obnoxious
sort that the journalists are encouraged or compelled to
satisfy the demand. All that can be fairly said against
the newspapers in this respect is that, they being busi-
ness concerns, and the competition among them being
as keen as it is, their conductors are not self-sacrificing
enough to withhold such information as the readers
seek.

Not only have we now almost complete freedom of
the press, but journalism is, as it always has been, one
of the freest of all trades ; and here also what may be
disadvantages are mixed with the advantages. No appren-
ticeship is needed for entering it, and no preliminaries are
required for participation in its highest rewards. As a
matter of fact, indeed, those rewards are often assigned
to men sufficiently qualified for them by native wit or
training in other ways, without any previous news-
paper drudgery, and therefore, inevitably, to the detri-
ment of the drudges who, fuUy entitled to promotion,
may have been vainly hoping for it through many
years. A smart member of parliament, a successful
barrister, a versatile clergyman, a retired schoolmaster,
a popular novelist, or any one else with enough in-
fluence or intellect, or with a name likely to prove
useful, may slip into an editorship or be made a principal
leader writer in preference to men of long standing iti
the office, who perhaps have to teach him his duties and
correct his blunders. These latter also suffer because,
in most cases, the work they continue doing is of a kind
that almost any one with aptitude for it can do. Such
moderate skill in writing as every schoolboy should
possess, with a knowledge of shorthand in some cases

B B 2

372 NOWADAYS ctr. xxt.

and a fair amount of general intelligence in all, enables
a novice quickly to become a proficient in some of the
largest departments of newspaper work, and the newly
imported novices, by reason of the freshness they bring
to the business, are sometimes more acceptable than the
jaded proficients. This state of things may be inevitable,
but it causes some harm to journalism as a whole, or
much of it, as well as to many journalists. Unhappily
for them, and perhaps also for the public, their calling
is one that is more easily taken up than abandoned. It
would not be more unfair to say, with Lord Beaconsfield,
that ' critics are men who have failed in literature or in
art,' than to say that journalists are men who are unfit
for any other occupation ; but the temperaments that
incline them to journalism are apt to render other
pursuits distasteful to them, and distaste or inapti-
tude is encouraged by the habits or the necessities
incident to the pursuit they have chosen. One who by
accident or of set purpose has become a journalist may
before long see reason to regret his position, may soon
discover that his chances of advancement in it are small,
and may grow callous or desperate, but he seldom
migrates to another line of life, and when he does he
seldom succeeds in it. Hence, though the Fleet Street
of to-day is in many ways an improvement on the Grub
Street of the last century, the traditions and infirmities
of Grub Street are not extinct.

These remarks apply rather to the rank and file of
journalism than to its captains ; but the rank and file,
of course, constitute by much its larger part, and are —
along with the proprietors and editors, the compositors,
printers, and machinists — the chief producers of news-
papers. Leader writing and original criticism of various
sorts, though now the sole material of some papers, like
' The Saturday Keview,' and indispensable to nearly all,

1887. THE TRADE OF NEWS-COLLECTING 37

Q

are but a modern branch of j ournalism, growing slowly in
response to the demand that newspapers should contain
much or, at any rate, som.ething besides news. There are
no clear lines of separation between news and criticism,
■each now of divers and diverse kinds, and the gradations
between the lowest and highest stages of their producers
are even more uncertain, seeing that so many journalists
are at different times both reporters and commentators,
and frequently are both at the same time ; but it is
important to an understanding of the present conditions
and methods of journalism that they should be severally
looked at.

The busiuess of news-collecting has been consider-
ably modified and vastly extended within the past
generation or so. The functions of the penny-a-hner
have been hardly lightened or simplified, but they have
been much altered, by the establishment of such organi-
sations as the Press Association, which collects and
distributes English news for all the newspapers that
care to avail themselves of its help, pretty much as
Eeuter's Agency has become the great importer and
retailer of every sort of news from abroad. The system
of co-roperation or comprehensive service of newspapers
carried out on a large scale by these organisations is
imitated or borrowed from in numberless other instances
within narrower Hmits. AU the daily papers, and
many of the weeklies, in and out of London, still have
their own reporters, few or many, who collect informa-
tion exclusively for their regular employers, and this is
especially the case as regards reports of proceedings in
parliament and at public meetings elsewhere ; but even
' The Times ' makes large use of outside help, and a
^eat many papers depend almost entirely upon such
help. The result is that, not only in London, but also in
less degree throughout the country, there is a curious

374 NOWADAYS CH. xxt.

subdivision of the labour of news collecting, by which
each collector, confining himself to a small area, and
perhaps only to certain varieties of news, is able to
perform the task he takes upon himself much more
thoroughly than he otherwise could, and to dispose of
his information in several newspaper offices instead of
in but one. London, for instance, is parcelled out into
several districts, in each of which are as many news-
collectors and local reporters as there is room for, who
divide among themselves the different sorts of news to
be reported. At every police court two or three — rivals
or partners — are hi constant attendance to take notes
of all interesting cases brought forward, and the same
men, being generally in intimate relations with the
police, are in a position to give early information about
street disturbances, robberies, murders, or whatever else
may occur. Others look after coroners' inquests, and
the like ; and in the same way provision is made for the
prompt reporting of accidents, fires, and casualties of
every kind, with as much trivial matter as can be found
to eke out the more important when the supply of this
is scanty. That a good deal of the matter is trivial few
can doubt, but as it pleases many readers and does not
often hurt any, there is fair excuse for its publication.
The same methods being pursued in other parts as in
London, modern newspaper readers are certainly enabled
to know more of the general condition of society than
did their fathers, and thereby many reforms of abuses
may be promoted.

Penny-a-lining has done much, by bringing ugly
things to light, to lead to their removal. It is their
own fault if newspaper readers are not well aware of
the vice, folly, and misery around them and needing
correction, of the undeserved hardships endured by
many of their neighbours, of the remediable evUs exist-

1887. EEPORTEKS AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES 375

ing every where, towards the remedying of which the
first step is that their existence should be made known.
The newspapers tell us much — and tell it more simply,
and perhaps more truthfully — which used, to be detailed
only in such novels as Charles Dickens's and. Charles
Keade's, and they emphasise the teachings conveyed in
such later novels as some of Walter Besant's. This is
not quite a novelty in journalism, .and it is often merely
accidental to the purpose of the reporters, whose function
is to state facts, not to preach sermons ; but it more than
compensates for the worthlessness — and even for the
mischievousness — of some of the news they detail.

That at times the news is very mischievous, how-
ever, must not be forgotten. Penny-a-liners are as apt
as other people to be biassed in their opinions, and mis-
informed as to facts ; and they are tempted to write in ac-
cordance with the bias of their employers, or to supply the
kind of information expected from them. Grave injury
may be done by the publication of one-sided, garbled,
or false news. Individuals have thus been grievously
wronged, and whole classes cruelly prejudiced. Strikes
and lock-outs in the mining and industrial districts, for
instance, have been, if not actually brought about, at
any rate encouraged and prolonged, by unfair and per-
haps even mahcious reports as to the causes or circum-
stances of disputes between employers and men ; and
many abuses have been strengthened through the
credence given to interested reporters. So it has been
especially, recently and for a long time past, with Irish
affairs. The jealousies of race, religion, and class have
persistently shown themselves in ostensibly accurate
descriptions of quarrels, outrages, and oppressions, for
which there was little or no foundation, and have been
lamentably fomented thereby. To the inventions and
exaggerations on both sides which have appeared in

376 NOWADAYS CH. xxt.

the columns both of English and of Irish newspapers
are in part attributable the troubles in Ireland itself,
and between its people and the English majority, which
our statesmen have thus far failed to overcome.

Both the faults and the merits of the humbler
system of news-reporting are enlarged in the more
dignified arrangements that have grown up for pro-
viding newspapers with authoritative information either
from foreign countries or on questions of special interest
in our own kingdom. The ' own correspondents ' and
the ' special correspondents ' are only exalted, more
responsible, and more influential penny-a-liners, many
of them being actually promoted from the ranks,
and others being leader-writers and sometimes news-
paper proprietors told ofi" for the purpose. The penny-
a-liner, it may be noted, now always receives, and
generally well deserves, better payment for his work
than is implied in the title, too convenient to be in
any way offensive, by which he is commonly known.
The correspondent holds an office of so much trust,
requiring for its proper performance the highest faculties
of a journalist, and entailing so much trouble and
expense, that his is nearly the best paid of all the depart-
ments of newspaper work.

The employment of correspondents in Paris and other
continental towns is an old and most useful institution.
It acquaints English newspaper readers, few of whom
have the means of access to any foreign journals, with
the general state of political and other affairs abroad,
and may be nearly the liveliest and most instructive read-
ing offered to them. It affords great opportunity, how-
ever, for the perversion of public opinion. Most readers
are at the mercy of their informants on such matters,
and they may be sadly misled through the ignorance or
partisanship of instructors who are not wilfully at fault.

1887. NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS 377

They are in worse case wlien, as too frequently happens,
their instructors deliberately aim at misleading them.
The risks are lessened by the profusion of correspon-
dence from different hands now appearing in the various
papers. Though few readers can be expected to com-
pare the diverse letters, say from Paris, to note their
contradictions, and to piece together the several items
of news furnished by one or other of the writers, but
omitted by the rest, the knowledge that they can be
thus checked and supplemented has a wholesome effect
on most of the correspondents. In the ordinary course
of events, moreover, no particular harm may be done
by the conveyance of false impressions as to the character
or policy of President Grevy, or Jules Ferry, or Cl^-
menceau, the behaviour of Rochefort or Louise Michel,
or the movements of the Bonapartist or Orleanist
factions. The risks are greater, however, when inter-
national relations are strained ; and newspaper corre-
spondents, publishing vague rumours as facts, com-
promising statesmen by their innuendoes and forcing on
events by their surmises or premature disclosures, may
bring about complications that threaten to stop a truce
or provoke a war. If some of the English journalists
employed in St. Petersburg and Constantiuople during
and before the latest struggle between Russia and
Turkey could have had their way, England would
probably have been forced to take part in that struggle,
and, since then, no credit is due to some of the English
journalists in St. Petersburg and Calcutta, that the
difi&culties about settling the Afghan boundary were not
developed into a casus belli. Those and like evils have
been averted, in spite of partisan journalists ; but some of
their comrades, to give but one instance, must be held
in large measure responsible for the prolonged turmoU
and confusion of late years incident to English meddling

378 NOWADAYS CH. xxv.

with Egypt, with Soudan campaigning among its
ramifications.

On the other hand the Russo-Turkish war and the
Egyptian difficulties furnish recent examples of the
good work that newspaper correspondents can da
in informing the public and influencing political
action by the prompt and truthful revelation of facts
that diplomatists would conceal if they could, and
statesmen and generals would wink at. It was a cor-
respondent of ' The Daily News ' who opened the eyes
of the public to the state of things in Bulgaria at the
time of the insurrection in 1876, which guided English
opinion, under Gladstone's leading, in opposition to
Tory plans for involving our nation in the Ottoman
designs against the Danubian races ; and other cor-
respondents assisted materially in securing for Arabi
Pasha such protection as he had against the schemes of
his enemies in 1882, and, after that, in exposing some of
the blunders and shortcomings of the invaders of the
Soudan. War correspondence has grown, in quantity
rather than in quality, since William Howard RusseU,
by his excellent work during the Crimean campaign,
made it fashionable and necessary, and its solid value has
been lessened in proportion to its increase in pretentious-
ness ; but it still yields ample evidence of the important
national service that newspapers can do in ways that
would not otherwise be trodden.

It is not all clear gain to the public that the news-
papers now have so many able and zealous special
correspondents in their employ. These writers are
generally better qualified to describe the horrors of a
battle field, the exciting incidents of an enemy's march
through a hostile country, or other stirring adventures,
than to discuss the humdrum aiFairs of domestic politics,
or to explore the nooks and crannies of our everyday

1887. NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS 379

life. It may be cMefly in joke that they often com-
plain, when idling about, perforce, in Fleet Street or
Westminster, that there is no war for them to take
part in ; but the belligerent tastes they have acquired,
their reasonable desire for congenial occupation, and
other causes, inevitably incline them, just as military
men, army contractors, stockjobbers, and others are
inclined, to look approvingly on every chance of a new
foreign quarrel, and, though their influence may not be
great, it is, through their newspaper connections, often
more effective than that of the military men and others,
in quickening the germs of warfare and in keeping up
disturbing controversies on frivolous questions which,
to say the least, do not promote a healthy feeling
throughout the country. In the absence of serious
work, such as they can do best, moreover, other work
for which they are less fitted has to be found for them
on the newspapers. They are brilliant chroniclers of
holiday manoeuvres by our ships, soldiers, and volun-
teers, of jubilee celebrations in "Westmuister Abbey, and
the like ; but such appropriate themes are not often
enough provided for them, and much of the ' special '
writing that has of late years been plentiful in many ot
the daily papers, amusing and suggestive ia its way,
but an awkward mixture of description and narrative,
in which the language is too strong, with criticism that
is thin and weak, betrays the handiwork of men who
have not turned their swords into ploughshares, and
who are only trjdng to use spears as pruning hooks.

At the same time the miscellaneous articles, half
news and half comment, and often with an allowable
colouriag of fiction to the facts set forth, with which
nearly all the papers are now more or less freely sup-
plied, are among their most serviceable as well as their
most attractive contents. This hybrid between the

380 NOWADAYS CH. xxv,

news-column and the leading article is of remote origin
and steady growth. Defoe made excellent use of it,
according to his humour, in the first decade of the
eighteenth century, and he has never been without
successors and imitators. Dickens helped to give it
new shape and value in his contributions to ' The
Morning Chronicle ' before he started ' The Daily
News,' and the long series of articles contributed by
Henry Mayhew and others, also to ' The Chronicle,'
on ' Labour and the Poor,' were conspicuous examples
of the good work that can be done in this line of jour-
nalism. James Caird's account of the agricultural
condition of England in 1850, in ' The Times,' is
another example.

' The Times,' with its ample space and ample re-
sources, has always made large and welcome use of its
opportunities in this way. From its files alone could
be extracted soHd and instructive matter enough on
miscellaneous subjects to fill as many volumes as ' The
Encyclopaedia Britannica,' with which the collection, if
it were made judiciously, and duly edited, would bear
comparison as a work of permanent value. Sometimes,
as many may think, it has misused its opportunities,
and allowed partisanship to go grievously astray, as in
its articles on ' Parnellism and Crime ' ; but its sternest
critics must admit that on the whole it has done well in
this sort of work. Other papers have generally essayed
lighter handling of themes both light and serious ;
instance Sala's and Clark Russell's contributions to ' The
Daily Telegraph,' and the contributions of many writers
to ' The Standard,' ' The Daily News,' and other
papers, some of the daintiest work of the kind being in
' The Gamekeeper at Home,' and other series of delight-
ful sketches by Richard JeiFeries in ' The Pall Mall
Gazette ' and elsewhere. A lower level is taken in this de-

1887. SIDE LINES OF JOURNALISM 381

partment of journalism when columns are occupied with
thinly-veiled advertisements of enterprising tradesmen,
ambitious adventurers, impudent charlatans, and others
— called ' interviews ' ; but even these may be interesting
and, to those who read them aright, not uninstructive.
If, moreover, ' The PaU MaU,' which claims to surpass
all other papers in this line, of work, has misused its
opportunities by issuing such distorted facts and pru-
rient fancies as appeared in its ' Maiden Tribute of
Modern Babylon,' it may also claim to have helped
in hastening or procuring the administration of justice
by the sensational portrayal of sach experiences as it
detailed in ' The Langworthy Marriage.'

The intermediate ground between the mere report-
ing of news by one set of writers and the work of other
writers in commenting thereon affords scope for several
other varieties of journalism. Nearly all newspapers
have their ' city articles,' and pay more or less attention
to financial affairs and the progress of trade ; and nearly
all deal, trivially or carefully, with new books, new pic-
tures, new plays, new inventions and discoveries, and,
on occasion, with popular sports and pastimes. For
each of these subjects, and for every other department
of thought or action, grave pursuit or stray diversion,
there are now special organs in the press. But it is
only right that a general newspaper should teU its
readers, to whom no other source of information may
be open, if not something about everything, at any rate
a little about so many things as are interesting to any
considerable number of them ; and in most of these
respects, if not in all, great advance has been made
with the growth of j ournalism. There are stUl some pro-
vincial and local papers whose editors have to be ' Jacks-
of-aU-trades,' leader writers, critics, reporters, and per-
haps, on emergency, their own compositors, printers,

382 NOWADAYS CH. xxv.

publishers, and errand -boys as well. But in the larger
newspaper offices, both in London and in the country, a
very different state of things now prevails. The editor
is the chief of a large staff, and besides the regular
writers in his employ, who are often debarred from
writing for any other papers, he knows where to obtain
as much outside help on any particular subject as he
requires. It is possible therefore for nearly every con-
ceivable subject to be dealt with as intelligently and
capably in a journal like ' The Times ' or ' The Standard '
as in any of the organs specially devoted to particular
subjects. Sometimes such subjects are better dealt with
in the general than in the special newspapers, the risks
from bias and prejudice being less, and the risks from
ignorance not greater.

Those different risks are serious, however, in the
case of nearly all papers. The hurry inevitable to news-
paper work may render it necessary, if the required
article has to be produced within a given time, for the
subject to be assigned, not to the writer most fit to deal
with it, but to the one nearest at hand ; and even he
may not be allowed time, before producing his article,
in which to consult his dictionaries and his histories,
and recall to his memory facts and views that he has
really mastered but has forgotten. The article, accord-
ingly, though it may not betray ignorance, cannot be
profound, and, if apparently learned and wise, may be
confusing and misleading. This is a serious drawback
to the value of much newspaper work, especially the
reviewing of books and the noticing of novelties in
science or art.

Bias and prejudice are more dangerous. It is no
easy matter for a newspaper writer to be always honest
and impartial. If he writes on financial concerns and
Stock Exchange operations, or on horseracing and other

1887. NEWSPAPER CRITICISMS 383

' sports ' connected with tte betting-ring, he is liable to
very coarse temptations, which he may indignantly
resist or to which he may yield. If he is a ' first-nighter '
at the theatres, the perils to which he is exposed are
more insinuating. He may be anonymous to the public,
but he canaot be anonymous to his neighbours and those
about whom it is his business to write. He may eschew
the society of actors and actresses, but he cannot avoid
intercourse with their friends. It is inevitable that he
should acquire Hkes and dislikes which, however zealously
kept under restraint, must affect his criticisms. So it
may have been even with Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt. So
it certainly is nowadays ; and hence we find that, con-
stant and considerable as is the attention paid by
newspapers to theatrical affairs, and great as is the power
of newspaper critics in making or marring the success
of new pieces at theatres, their criticisms rarely have any
lasting authority. These remarks, however, are only
incidental ; and theatrical criticism is merely referred to
as illustrating an infirmity that is more or less insepar-
able from nearly all newspaper work.

If grave fault is to be found with any of the modern
developments of journalism or modem adaptations of
its old forms, the heaviest blame must fall on one which,
assuming to itself great dignity and sometimes having
great influence, is perhaps harmless and only amusingly
contemptible in its more excusable phases, but which is
no more at best than an extension of the meanest and
riskiest part of the penny-a-liner's craft. ' The first
thing required of reporters,' said a too harsh critic of
the English newspapers in an American journal, ' is that
they shall supply at least as much news as the reporters
of the other papers, the second that they shall supply
as much more as possible ; and a man who takes on
himself to discriaunate between facts and rumours, and

384 NOWADAYS OH. xxv.

to remain silent sooner than telegraph or write what he
feels sure is a sensational falsehood, but which, for a
day at least, if printed, would put his paper in request,
is too apt to find Ms value decline and his prospects
grow dim.' ^ That is true of only some, and it is less
true of ordinary penny-a-liners than of the writers of
' London letters ' and of the gossiping paragraphs in
' society journals,' and the columns modelled upon
them in other papers ; nor is it more than partially true
of these. ' These prints,' said the same critic, concern-
ing the ' society journals ' and their imitators, ' live on
personalities. Gossip, scandal, innuendo, and insinua-
tion are their meat and drink. Their managers or pro-
prietors have detectives hovering about the lobby of the
House of Commons, flitting about the back stairs of
houses where the great world congregate, attending
popular churches, frequenting the easier kind of clubs,
pushing their way into the private houses of the smartest
among our public men. They pay their detectives for
all the garbage of fashionable or domestic life that they
can rake together.' ^ The allegation is too sweeping ;
but there is some warrant for it. The methods of ' The
Morning Post ' and of ' John Bull ' in their earlier days,
of ' The Age,' ' The Town,' and many similar publica-
tions before and since their date, unfortunately are not
yet obsolete.

Obnoxious and reprehensible as is much of the
tittle-tattle printed about noted or notorious members
of ' society,' it generally injures only the individuals
immediately concerned in it, and, though it may be no
better than 'garbage raked together,' right-minded
people suffer but little inconvenience, as they pass it by
or go out of their way to avoid it ; but the general

" Nation (New York), August 12, 1869. « Ibid., July 5, 1877.

1887. TITTLE-TATTLE IN NEWSPAPERS 385

harm is greater when the tittle-tattle is about public
men, and it may be as mischievous when it takes the
form, of fulsome praise as when it is prompted by malice.
We have lately had plain evidence of the serious mis-
leading of public opinion regarding influential politicians
and important political movements, alike from adulation
and from slander. The difficulties of the Irish question,
which entered on a new stage in 1886, and the divisions
among Liberals that were then apparent, can be traced
to far deeper causes, but they have cei'tainly been
aggravated by the unseemly ways in which, sometimes
with as little truth as courtesy, the names of Gladstone,
Bright, Chamberlain, Hartington, and many more have
been bandied about for the amusement and the profit
of journalists ' hovering about the lobby of the House
of Commons ' and elsewhere. Yet such exploits are
counted among the triumphs of journalism in these
days, and not merely the humble frequenters of the
lobby but also members of parliament who are news-
paper editors and newspaper proprietors, not merely the
lackeys and the ladies' maids whom Thackeray derided,
but titled dames and scions of ' the nobility,' now make
a trade of them.

The highest grade of newspaper work, short of
editorship, is generally reckoned to be the writiag of
leading articles on political and other current topics.
Defoe, who was the pioneer of so much else in modern
journalism, initiated the system of leader writing in
George I.'s days, his own political and social discourses,
like those of Steele, Addison, Swift, and others, having
previously been given in separate essay sheets, while
the newspapers concerned themselves almost exclusively
with news ; and, though often afterwards separate
essay-sheets like Wilkes's ' North Briton ' appeared, and
the best political writing, as by Junius in ' The Public

VOL, II. c c

386 NOWADAYS CH. xiv.

Advertiser,' was in the form of letters, not of leading
articles, there have been plenty of famous and fame-
worthy followers of Defoe during the past century and
a half. Coleridge, Mackintosh, and their friends and
opponents belonged to one period ; Leigh Hunt and
compeers as different as Canning and Cobbett, to
another ; Albany Fonblanque, Rintoul, Sterling, and
many more, to a third ; and the list of eminent writers
in our own generation couM hardly be compressed into
a page. That much of the work now done is inferior
in quality to the best that has been done in former times
is not surprising. The average of our own day will
bear comparison with the average of any earlier day,
and, if the quality should content us, the quantity, when
account is taken of all the newspapers published
throughout the kingdom, must satisfy the most in-
ordinate requirements.

This abundance of leader writing, incidental to the
abundance of newspapers, seems to betoken a lowering
of its value, which need not imply any lessening of
its intrinsic worth. Notwithstanding all the improve-
ments that have been made in newspapers in recent
years, and, with a few intervals, ever since their com-
mencement, a very noteworthy change, which ought
not to be regarded as a deterioration, and may be a
necessary concomitant of the improvements, appears to
be now taking place in this respect. Our earliest news-
papers oflFered their readers nothing but news, though
of course the news soon began to be selected or written
in accordance with the editors' bias. This selection
and preference continued long after the editors under-
took to instruct their readers, in separate articles, as to
the views they should hold on the questions of the day
prominently dealt with in their news- columns. Now,
however, though nearly all papers give more or less

1887. LEADING ARTICLES 'AND LEADER WRITERS 387

preference, in theii* reporting of news, to the subjects or
the lines of policy they favour, it is necessary for them
to be comparatively impartial in their news reports, as,
if they fail to supply such general information as their
readers want, the readers will go elsewhere for it.
Facts may be garbled, but they cannot be suppressed,
and all readers who care to have opinions on the ques-
tions of the day are able to form them for themselves,
while those who are not independent or intelKgent
enough to form their own opinions have other sources
of inspiration — their immediate friends, influential mem-
bers of their clubs, or their party leaders. Newspapers
are read now chiefly for their general news, or the in-
formation on special subjects that are discussed ia them.
The leading articles, if read at all, are as seldom read
for iastruction as sermons in church are listened to, if
listened to at all, for profit. When these articles coincide
with the readers' opinions, they are approved. When the
readers disagree with them, they resent them. In
neither case have they so much weight as similar arti-
cles, written in the same papers and with no more
ability, had only a few years ago.

The intelligence, as well as the wilfulness, of news-
paper readers has weakened the authority of newspaper
writers. The readers, or a great many of them, are now
much more on a level with the writers than they used
to be, and this approach to equality opens the way to
some arrogance on the one side and some servility on
the other. The ' thundering ' style of Sterling and
others, in ' The Times,' is not yet out-of-date, and we can
see amusing instances of it every day in one or other of
the hundreds of papers that are j)ublished, but even the
readers who enjoy this style are amused, not awed by
it ; and this, even more than other styles, when it is
employed, is intended rather for the entertainment than

c 0 2

388 NOWADAYS CH. xxv..

for the iastruction of the public. And other styles are
too often adopted with the same inferior purpose.
Though he may please himself with the thought that
he is, or seems to be, guiding public opinion, the leader
writer cannot but be aware that he is generally doing
little more than following it. More than that, too, and
worse — though, in this respect, matters are much the
same as they have been at all previous stages in news-
paper history — the leader writer is sometimes not even
free to give expression to views that he honestly shares
with the majority of his readers. He may have ' to
write to order,' to hold a brief, like a barrister, for the
party with which his paper is allied, or for the employer
who may have reasons of his own for enforcing par-
ticular opinions on questions about which he also, like
his subordinate, is not too much bound by party ties for
independence to be prudent. Experience shows that,
under such conditions, very brilliant articles may be
produced ; but there is of necessity more flash than fire
in them, and by the better-informed readers this is well
understood.

If, however, the leading article, as an exponent and
director of public thought, esj)ecially on those questions
which happen to be of paramount interest at the time
of writing, has lost, or is losing, some of its importance,
ample scope is left for the doing of effective work by
leader writers ; and such work is, on the whole, well
done by them. Though newspaper readers, using or
abusing the larger opportunities for political thought
and action which newspapers haA^e greatly helped in
procuring for them, may refuse to be either as much
coerced or as much convinced as their fathers were, and'
may consider themselves qualified to guide rather than
to be guided by the newspapers, there is plenty for them
to learn and much that they may be taught. The

1887. CONDITIONS OF NEWSPAPEB WORK 389

popular mind appears rarely able to apprehend more
than one great subject at a time, if it is able to appre-
hend that ; and public opinion sways in currents that
are too strong — there being always, of course, two con-
tending currents of public opinion on the same subjects
— for newspapers to do much towards checking them.
So it was during the time of the Russo-Turkish war,
and again during the time of Egyptian campaigning,
and so it has been since on the q^iestion of Irish Home
Rule. Political writers can do little to stem these
currents directly, and many of them are sorely tempted
to follow the lead of platform demagogues and win
temporary applause by humouring the whims and pan-
dering to the prejudices of their readers ; but they can
do much, if they are wise and honest, and they often
really do it, by offering criticisms on side issues, by
recalling forgotten truths, and by enforcing neglected
arguments, which may serve, if but slowly and partially,
to enhghten the pubhc mind, even on matters about
which the public mind professes itself too resolute to be
enlightened. More than that, though there is generally
but one important question to the front, there are always,
in a nation so hampered as ours is with unsolved problems
at home and growing responsibilities abroad, some scores
of important questions in the rear. The shrewd and
intelligent political writer will keep these, or such of
them as he is able to deal with, in view ; and he can
render immense service, for which his readers will be
duly grateful, by calling attention to them on suitable
occasions, and thus sowing seed which, even if it falls
on dry ground at first, may bear fruit hereafter.

The grim humourist who wrote ' Sartor Resartus '
more than half a century ago declared that ' the Jour-
nalists are now the true Kings and Clergy : henceforth

390 NOWADAYS CH. xxt.

Historians, unless they are fools, must write not of
Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs, but of
the Broad-sheet Dynasties, and quite new successive
Names, according as this or the other Able Editor, or
Combination of Able Editors, gains the world's ear.'
And in another chapter he varied his metaphor. ' Hast
thou not still Preaching enough ? A Preaching Friar
settles himself in every village, and builds a pulpit, which
he calls Newspaper. Therefrom he preaches what most
momentous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation ; and
dost not thou listen, and believe? Look well, thou seest
everywhere a new Clergy of the Mendicant Orders,, some
bare-footed, some almost bare-backed, fashion itself into
shape, and teach and preach, zealously enough, for
copper alms and the love of God. These break in pieces
the ancient idols ; and, though themselves too often
reprobate, as idol-breakers are wont to be, mark out the
sites of new Churches.'

That fanciful description, only to some extent true
at any time, is less true to-day than it was when
Carlyle spoke : but there was meaning in his mockery.
Newspapers are now thrones and pulpits, and journalism
assumes to itself the right and power to control and
reform the world ; and not without some reason. During
these past eight generations it has made mighty pro-
gress in England, yielding benefit, in spite of blunders
and faults, misdoings and mischances, alike to those
who have served in its ranks and to those they have
served.

INDEX.

A'Bbckett, GrLBBKT Abbott, his
work on ' Figaro in London,' ii.
116 ; on ' Punch; ii. 118 ; on 'The
Times,' ii. 186

Ahel, Dr., his work on ' The Stan-
dard,' ii. 337

Abei-deen, Lord, and ' The Times,'
ii. 156, 172-177, 191, 192, 199,
202, 204; and 'The Morning
Chronicle,' ii. 156, 192

'Academy, The/ ii. 315, 316

Addington, Henry, Lord Sidmouth,
i. 275, 280

Addison, Joseph, i. 73, 91, 100 ; his
share in ' The Tatler,' i. 69, 73 ;
in ' The Spectator,' i. 58, 75, 81,
8-3-87 ; in ' The Whig Examiner,'
i. 77 ; in ' The Medley,' i. 77 ; in
'The Freeholder,' i. 76, 99; in
' The Old Whig,' i. 100

Adelaide, Queen, and Lord Mel-
bourne's Government, ii. 78

' Adventurer, The,' i. 142

Advertisement tax, the, i. 81, 225,
244, 245, 291 ; ii. 53, 63, 112,209,
211, 214-216

'Age, The,' u. 29, 66, 60, 71, 89 n.,
227

Albert, Prince, newspaper attacks
on, ii. 201-208

' Albion, The,' i. 272, 307

' Al&ed, The,' i. 355

Allingham, Mrs., her work on ' The
Graphic,' ii. 297

Almon, John, his trial for libelling
George III., i. 204 ; for libelling
Lord Sandwich, i. 233 ; his par-
liamentary reporting, i. 208, 209

Amhurst, Nicholas (Caleb Dan-
vers), editor of ' The Craftsman,'
i. 116 ; his misfortunes, i. 138

AUE

Anderson, David, his work on 'Pan,'

ii. 309
Anglesey, Lord, Dyer's libel on,

i. 103, 104
'Anti-Jacobin, The,' i. 321-326
'Anti-Jacobin Review, The,'i. 326 n. ;

ii. 36
' Applebee's Weekly Journal,' i. 102,

106, 108, 109, 116, 122
Applegarth's steam printing machi-
nery, ii. 185
Appleton, C. E. C. B., editor of 'The

Academy,' ii. 315, 316
Archer, Thomas, old printer and

bookseller, i. 4, 5
' Areopagitica,' Milton's, i. 15
' Argus, The,' ii. 28
' Aris's Birmingham Gazette,' i. 98n.,

382
' Army and Navy Gazette, The,' ii.

252, 295
Arnall, WiUiam (Francis Walsing-

ham), editor of ' The Free Briton,'

i. 120, 121
Arnold, Arthur, editor of 'The

Echo,' ii. 275
Arnold, Edwin, his work on 'The

Daily Telegraph,' ii. 242, 270,

335
Arnold, Matthew, ii. 316
' Asmodeus in London,' ii. 117
' Athenaeum, The,' ii. 28, 147, 250,

295, 313, 314, 317
• Athenian Gazette, The,' i. 60 n.
' Athenian Mercury, The,' i. 50 n.
•Atlas, The,' ii. 46,46,64
Atterbury, Francis, Bishop of

Rochester, his work on ' The Ex-
aminer,' i. 76
'Auditor, The,' i. 144, 162
'Aurora, The,' i. 286

392

INDEX

AUS

Austin, Alfred, his work on 'The
Standard,' ii. 337

Bailey, ' Alphabet,' first editor of

' The lUuatrated London News,' ii.

120
Baines, Edward, of ' The Leeds Mer-
cury,' i. 383 ; ii. 134
Baker, Henry, Defoe's son-in-law,

editor of 'The Universal Spec-
tator,' i. 109
Baldwin, Charles, of 'The Standard,'

ii. 143, 225
Baldwin, Edward, of ' The Morning

Herald,' ii. 136, 143, 144, 226
Bald win, George, i. 74
Baldwin, Henry, of ' The St. James's

Chronicle,' i. 210
Baldwin, Richard, the publisher,

i. 192
Barham, Richard Harris (Thomas

Ingoldsby), his work on ' John

Bull,' ii. 9
Barnes, Thomas, his work on ' The

Examiner,' i. 345, 348, 361; on

'The Champion,' ii. 360, 361;

editor of 'The Times,' i. 360,

366 «.; ii. 15, 69-72, 77,79-81,

83, 84, 110, 111, 164, 165 n.
Barrere, Oamille, his work on ' The

World,' ii. 306
Bartlett, Ashmead, ii. 355
Bate, Henry, see Dudley, Henry

Bate
' Bath Chronicle, The,' i. 220
' Bath Herald, The,' ii. 361
Bayly, Thomas Haynes, his work

on ' John Bull,' ii. 9
' Beacon, The,' of Edinburgh, i. 385
Beaconsfield, Earl of, see Disraeli,

Benjamin
Beckford, Alderman Richard, i. 151
Beckford, William, Lord Mayor, i.

151, 164, 178-180, 198, 201, 202
Beeton, Samuel Orchard, ii. 295,

321
'Belfast Newsletter, The,' i. 384;

ii. 366
' Belfast Northern Whig, The ; ' see

' Northern Whig, The '
Bell, John, newspaper proprietor,

i. 270, 291
'Bell's Life in London,' ii. 12, ]24,

295, 320, 321

BOU

'Bell's Weekly Dispatch;' «ee 'Weekly

Dispatch '
' Bell's Weekly Newspaper,' i. 291 ;

ii. 124, 320
Bellamy, the wine merchant, his

share in ' The Morning Chronicle,'

i. 261, 265
Bentham, Jeremy, ii. 12, 36
' Berrow's Worcester Journal,' i.

98 «.., 381
Bingley, "William, Wilkes's successor

on 'The North Briton,' i. 177,

200-203
Birkbeck, George, ii. 55, 65
Birkenhead, John, i. 12, 29, 31 ; his

' Mercurius Aulicus,' i. 11, 12, 29,

374 ; his press censorship, i. 29-

31,34
' Birmingham Daily Gazette, The,'

ii. 276, 361
'Birmingham Daily Post, The,' ii.

257, 276, 328, 361
Black, John, editor of ' The Morning

Chronicle,' i. 262, 268, 363 ; ii. 12-

14, 36, 87-93, 140
Black, William, his work on ' The

Daily News,' ii. 285, 335
Black, Dr., of 'The Constitutional,'

ii. 96
BlackweU, John, of ' The Newcastle

Oourant,' ii. 184
Bladon, J., of ' The General Evening

Post,' i. 210
Blanchard, Samuel Laman, his work

on ' The True Sun,' ii. 98 ; on ' The

Constitutional,' ii. 97, 98 ; on ' The

Courier,' ii. 100 ; on ' The Exa-
miner,' ii. 100 ; on ' The Daily

News,' ii. 143
Bogue, David, ii. 251
Bohun, Edmund, press licencer, i. 62
Boliugbroke, Lord ; see St. John,

Henry
Borthwick, Sir Algernon, of 'The

Morning Post,' ii. 226, 243, 345
' Boston Gazette, The,' i. 387, 389
' Boston Newsletter, The,' i. 386,

387
Boulger, Demetrius, his work on

' The Standard,' ii. 337
Bourne, H. R. Fox, his work on ' The

Examiner,' i. 338 n. ; ii. 288-291 ;

on ' The Reader,' ii. 314 ; on ' The

Weekly Dispatch,' ii. 349

INDEX

393

BOU

^Bourne, Nicliolas, old printer and

bookseller, i. 4, 5
Bourne, Stephen, editor of ' The

World,' ii. 45
Bowen, James, i. 206 n.
Bowes, Hely, his work on ' The

Standard,' ii. 337
Bowring, Sir John, ii. 36
Boyer, Abel, his ' Postboy,' i. 57,
69, 70, 80 ; his ' Political State,' i.
127
Boyle, Frederick, his work on ' The

Standard,' ii. 837
Boyle, Robert' Whelan, editor of

' The Daily Chronicle,' ii. 339
Brackenbury, Colonel, his work on

' The Standard,' ii. 337
Bradbury & Evans, ii. 118, 140, 143,

320
' Bradford Obsei-ver, The,' ii. 362
Bradlaugh, Charles, his ' National

Reformer,' ii. 252
Bridge Street Gang, the, ii. 10
Bright, John, ii. 173, 218, 222, 223,

265, 267-269 f

Brighton, newspapers of, ii. 360V
' Brighton Guardian, The,' ii. 45
' Brighton Herald, The,' ii. 45
' Bristol Mercury, The,' ii. 361
' Bristol Times, The,' ii. 361
•Britannia, The,' ii. 131
■• British Apollo, The,' i. 68, 75
' British Journal, The,' i. 116
'British Mercantile Gazette, The,' ii.

311
' British Merchant, The,' i. 102
' British Mercury, The,' i. 55 n.
'British Press, The,' i. 286, 287,

354 ; ii. 27, 28
'Briton, The,' i. 154, 155, 158, 162
Brooks, Shirley, ii. 281, 299, 314
Brough, Robert, ii. 251
Brougham, Lord, his relations with
the Hunts, i. 344, 345, 347, 348 ;
his work on ' the Morning Chro-
nicle,' i. 363, ii. 14, 16 ; his rela-
tions with 'The Times,' ii. 74-79
Brown, Dr. Kobert, his work on

' The Standard,' ii. 337
Buckingham, James Silk, ii. 28, 147
Buckle, George Earle, editor of ' The

Times,' ii. 357
Buckley, Samuel, printer of 'The
Spectator,' 'The DaUy Courant,'

CAN

'The London Gazette,' &c., i. 67,

70, 104, 105, 119
'Builder, The,' ii. 131, 295, 318
Duller, Charles, ii. 90, 100, 105
' Bullionist, The,' ii. 318
Bulwer, Edward Lytton, ii. 52, 61,

62, 64, 223
Burdett, Sir Francis, i. 328, 337,

341
Burdett-Coutts, WiUiam, ii. 355
Burke, Edmund, i. 171, 178, 238,

293 ; on the law of libel, i. 206,

232
Burnand, F. C, editor of ' Punch,'

ii. 299
Bums, Robert, i. 269 ; newspaper

work offered to, i. 272
Burton, Kobert, on news pamphlets,

i. 2
'Business and Agency Gazette, The,'

ii. 337
Bute, Lord, and Wilkes's attacks on

him, i. 153, 154, 157, 158, 162-

165, 182
Butler, Mrs., her work on 'The

Graphic,' ii. 197
Butter, Nathaniel, i. 3 ; ii. 367 ; his

' Courants ' and ' Weekly News,'

i. 4-8, 10, 373 ; his ' Pas'sages in

Parliament,' i. 10
Byron, Lord, on Coleridge and

Southey, i. 309

Cadbll, Thomas, i. 196

Caird, Sir James, his work on ' The

Times,' ii. 187, 333
Caimes, J. E., his work on ' The

Examiner,' ii. 291
' Caledonian Mercury, The,' i. 98 n.,

380
Cameron, J. A., his work on ' The

Standard,' ii. 337
Campbell, John, of Boston, i. 386
Campbell, Lord, his work on ' The

Morning Chronicle,' i. 263
Campbell, Thomas, his work on 'The

Morning Chronicle,' i. 263, 264,

364; on 'The Star,' and 'The

Courier,' i. 288 ; his share in ' The

New Monthly Magazine,' i. 366
Canning, George, i. 321 ; ii. 3 ;

his share in ' The Anti- Jacobin,'

i. 321-326

394

INDEX

Carmichael, J. W., his work for

' The Illustrated London News,'

ii. 296
Caroline, Queen, and the newspapers,

ii. 3-5, 10, 16
Carpenter, E. T., i. 211
Carpenter, William, and his 'Poli-
tical Letters,' ii. 56-58
Carr, Henry, i. 44
Carr, J. Comyns, his work on ' The

World,' ii. 306
Oarrington, Lord, his quarrel with

Grenville Murray, ii. 308
Oaasell, John, ii. 274
Catling, Thomas, editor of ' Lloyd's

Weekly Newspaper,' ii. 347
' Cato Letters,' Trenchard's and Gor-
don's, i. Ill, 112
Cave, Edward, of ' The Gentleman's

Magazine,' i. 125, 127-129, 382
Cecil, Lord Robert, see Salisbury,

Marquis of
Censorship of the press, under the

Star Chaftiber, i. 7, 9, 27, 28;

under the Long Parliament, i. 9,

14, 16, 17-20, 28; under the

Commonwealth, i. 20-24, 28 ;

under Charles II., i. 28-49
' Central News, The,' ii. 277
' Central Press, The,' ii. 258, 259, 277
Chadwick, Edwin, his work on ' The

Examiner,' ii. 249
Chalmers, Alexander, editor of ' The

Morning- Herald,' i. 367
' Chambers's Edinburgh Journal,' ii.

58, 60, 116
' Champion,' Fielding's, i. 125, 182
Charles I. and ' Mercurius Aulicus,'

i. 11, 29; and ' Mercurius Pragma-

ticus,' i. 16
Charles II. and ' The Oxford Gazette,'

i. 39
Chatham, Earl of, see Pitt, William
Chatterton, Thomas, his work as a

journalist, i. 199-208
' Chelmsford Chronicle, The,' i. 382
Ohenery, Thomas, editor of ' The

Times,' ii. 194, 333, 334, 366, 867
' Chester Oourant, The,' i. 382
Chesterfield, Lord, i. 136, 142
Christie, James, i. 206 n.
Churchill, Charles, his work on ' The

North Briton,' i. 160, 161, 170,

178

COL

Gibber, Theophilus, i. 141

' Citizen, The,' ii. 325

' City Intelligencer, The,' i. 69

' City Mercury, The,' i. 41

' City Press, The,' ii. 252, 324

Clay, Sir William, ii. 62

Olayden, P. W., his work on 'The-
DaUy News,' ii. 335

Cleave, John, ii. 55, 67, 65

' Cleave 's Penny Gazette of Varieties,"^
ii. 115

' Cleave's Weekly Police Gazette,'
ii. 65

Clement, William, his management
of ' The Observer,' i. 290 ; ii. 12,
54 n. ; of 'The Morning Chronicle,'
ii. 12, 64 n., 87 ; of The English-
man,' ii. 12, 54 n. ; of ' Bell's Life
in London,' ii. 12, 54 n.

'Clerkenwell News, The,' ii. 338

Oobbe, Frances Power, her work on
'The Echo,' ii. 275; on 'The
Examiner,' ii. 291 ; on ' The
Standard,' ii. 387

Oobbett, William, i. 328-331, 334,.
387, 344, 363

' Cobbett's Weekly Political Regis-
ter,' i. 381-885, 353 ; ii. 54

Cobden, Richard, ii. 144, 145, 238,
257, 269 ; bis opposition to ' The
Times,' ii. 172, 187-189, 264-268;
on the taxes on knowledge, ii. 210,
214, 217, 229

Coffee-houses as news rooms, i. 2,.
48, 54, 59, 84, 146

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, his work
on ' The Morning Chronicle,' i.
264, 265, 296; on 'The Morning
Post,' i. 278, 294-308, 309, 316-
319; on 'The Courier,' i. 276,
310-318; other work, i. 296, 810,
312 «., 313 n.

' Collection for the Improvement of
Husbandry,' i. 51 n,

Oollett, Charles Dobson, ii. 211, 218,
229

Collier, John Dyer, i. 362

Collier, John Payne, i. 362 ; ii. 14,
15,91

Collins, Mortimer, his work on ' The--
World,' ii. 306

Colman, George, i. 142

' Coloured News, The,' ii. 251

Colvin, Sidney, ii. 316

INDEX

395

COM

Commonwealth, press censorship

under the, i. 21-24
Conoanen, Matthew, i. 120
Conder, Josiah, editor of ' The

Patriot,' ii. 45
Congreve, William, i. 73
Conington, John, ii. 316
' Connoisseur, The,' i. 142
'Constitutional, The,' ii. 96-100
Constitutional Association, the, ii.

10
' Con-Test, The,' i. 143
Cook, Button, his work on ' The

World,' ii. 306
Cook, John Douglas, his editorship of

' The Morning Chronicle,' ii. 153-

158, 232; of 'The Saturday Re-
view,' ii. 232, 346
Cooke, George Wingrove, his work

for 'The Times,' ii. 186, 246
Cooke, Nathaniel, ii. 119, 297
Cooke, William, i. 223, 249
Cooper, Charles, of ' The Scotsman,'

ii. 271
' Cork Constitution, The,' ii. 366
Cornwall, Barry, i. 368
Costello, Dudley, ii. 249
Coulson, Walter, editor of 'The

Traveller,' ii. 28, 36, 93
' County Gentleman, The,' ii. 320
' Uountrv Journal, or Craftsman,

The,' f. 116
' Courant,' Butter's, i. 4, 6
' Courier, The,' under John Parry,

i. 274, 322, 327, 331 n. ; under

David Stuart and Peter Street,

i. 274-279, 288, 292, 309-314;

afterwards, i. 354, 367; ii. 23,

26, 26, 30, 89 n., 95, 100
' Courrier Franyais de Londres, Le,'

i. 333, 334
Courtney, Leonard H., his work on

' The Times,' ii. 333, 334
Cowen, Joseph, of 'The Newcastle

Chronicle,' ii. 362
Cox, Serjeant Horace, ii. 252, 295,

320
Coyne, Stirlmg, ii. 118, 120
Crabbe, George, on newspapers,

i. 194, 195, 226-228, 289, 290;

a contributor to ' The Literary

Gazette,' i. 368
'Craftsman, The,' i. 116, 117, 124
Crawford, Mrs. Emily, her work on

' Truth,' ii. 311 ; on ' The Weekly

Dispatch,' ii. 350
' Critic, The,' ii. 313
' Critical Review, The,' i. 154
Croker, John Wilson, i. 386; ii. 6,

20, 24, 25, 71 n.
Oroly, Dr., i. 368
Crosby, Brass, Lord Mayor, i. 212-

216
Crouch, Nathaniel, i. 57
Crowe, Eyre Evans, his work on

'The Morning Chronicle,' ii. 91,

109, 143 ; on ' The DaUy News,'

ii. 143, 150, 159; on 'The

Exammer,' ii. 249
Crowe, James Archer, ii. 148
Cruikshank, George, ii. 117
Cunningham, Allan, ii. 147
Curtis, George Byrom, his work on

'The Standard,' ii. 336

' Daily Adveeiibee, The,' i. 119,

141, 193
' Daily Chronicle, The,' ii. 337-339,

357
' Daily Courant, The,' i. 66, 67, 68,

102, 119, 120, 123, 141
'Daily Expresss, The,' ii. 337.
'Daily Journal, The,' i. 116, 119
Daily News, The,' under Charles

Dickens, ii, 140-146 ; under John
' Forster, ii. 145, 148, 149 ; under

Eyre Evans Crowe, ii. 150, 159,.

180 ; under Knight Hunt, ii. 151,

153, 159-163, 186, 202, 242;

under William Weir, ii. 224, 225;

under Thomas Walker, ii. 242,

272; under F. H. HiU, ii. 272,

273, 281-285, 304, 310, 311, 327,

335, 357, 358, 378 ; under Henry

W. Lucy, ii. 359
Daily Post, The,' i. 107, 108, 116,

119, 141, 192
' Daily Telegraph, The,' ii. 234-237,

241, 242, 267, 270, 271, 285, 327,

335, 357
'Daily Universal Register,' i. 264-

259
Dallas, E. S., his work on ' The

World,' ii. 306
Darwin, Charles, his work on ' Na-
ture,' ii. 316
Davies, Rev. Llewellyn, his work on

'The Reader,' ii. 314

396

INDEX

Dawks's Newsletter,' i. 58, 69, 71

Dawson, George, editor of the ' Bir-
mingham Daily Post,' ii. 361

'Day, The,' of 1798, i. 286, 354,
359 ; il. 18

'Day, The,' of 1867, ii. 273

Debretf s ' Parliamentary Debates,' i.
251

Defoe, Benjamin Norton, i. 118

Defoe, Daniel, i. 62, 65, 103, 114,
376, 380; his 'Review,' i. 62-
65, 74, 100 ; ii. 299 ; his ' Mer-
cator,' i. 101, 103 ; his work for
' The Flying Post and Medley,'
i. 103, 104 ; for ' Mercurius Poli-
ticus,' i. 104, 105 ; for ' Dormer's
Newsletter,' i. 105 ; for ' Mist's
Weekly Journal,' i. 105, 106, 108,
109; for 'The Whitehall Even-
ing Post,' i. 107-109; for ' Apple-
bee's Weekly Journal,' i. 106,
108, 109; for 'The Daily Post,'
i. 107-109 ; for ' The Universal
Spectator,' i. 109

Delane, John Thaddeus, editor of
'The Times,' ii. 164-168, 172, 174-
178, 181, 182, 185, 186, 188, 189,
191, 193, 196, 197, 200, 202-205,
207, 264-268, 330-333, 335

Delane, William, ii. 153, 164

De Q.uincey, Thomas, on Coleridge,
i. 302, 310

' Derby Mercury, The,' i, 382

•Devil in London, The,' ii. 117

' Diary,' William Woodfall's, i. 224,
261

' Dibdin's Penny Trumpet,' ii. 117

Dicey, Albert, ii. 314

Dicey, Edward, ii. 314

Dickens, Charles, ii. 91, 93 n., 229,
300 ; his work on ' The Morning
Chronicle,' ii. 91, 140, 380; on
' The Daily News,' ii. 140-146 ; his
' Household Words ' and ' House-
hold Narrative,' ii. 214, 217

Dickens, John, ii. 91, 143

Dilke, Ashton Wentworth, proprie-
tor of ' The Weekly Dispatch,' ii.
349, 364

Dilke, Charles Wentworth, the first,
his management of ' The Athe-
nEeum,'ii. 147, 316 ; of 'The Daily
News,' ii. 147, 148

Disraeli, Benjamin, ii. 20, 22, 326 ;

ECO

his subscription to ' The Exa-
miner,' ii. 52 ; letters in ' The
Globe,' ii. 109; letters in 'The
Times,' ii. 109 ; on the ' taxes on
knowledge,' ii. 212, 215, 217, 223;
on Ohenery of ' The Times,' ii.
334

' Diurnal Occurrences ' of the Long
Parliament, i. 9, 10.

Diurnals, the old, i. 9, 19

Dixon, William Hepworth, his work
on ' The Morning Chronicle,' ii.
159 ; on ' Lloyd's Newspaper,' ii.
227 ; on ' The Athenaeum,' ii. 313,
317

Dodington, Bubb, i. 139, 153

Dodsley, James, i. 196

Dodsley, Robert, i. 144, 254

' Domestic Intelligence,' i. 41

Donaldson, James, i. 380

' Dormer's Newsletter,' i. 105

Dowdeswell's Libel Bill, i. 179, 232

Dowling, Richard, ii. 350

Doyle, Andrew, editor of ' The
Morning Chronicle,' ii. 93, 140

Drakard, of 'The Stamford News,' i.
343, 344, 883

' Dramatic Review, The,' 323

Draper, Edward, ii. 251

Draper, Sir \^^illiam, i. 186

' Drapier's Letters,' Swift's, i. 117 n.

' Dublin Daily Express, The,' ii. 866

Dudley, Henry Bate, editor of ' The
Morning Post,' i. 220-228 ; of ' The
Morning Herald,' i. 250, 253, 254

Duncan, James, ii. 87

Dunckley, Henry, of ' The Man-
chester Examiner,' ii. 362

'Dundee Advertiser, The,' ii. 46,
258, 362

Dunton, John, bookseller and jour-
nalist, i. 50 n., 52 n., 74 n.

Durham, Earl of, ii. 48, 70, 73, 74

Dury, Giles, i. 24, 34

'Dyer's Newsletter,' i. 58, 69, 69, 71

' East LoNDOTr Observer, The,' ii.
325

Easthope, Sir John, of ' The Morn-
ing Chronicle,' ii. 87, 90, 93, 152

' Echo, The,' ii. 274, 275, 344, 846

' Economist, The,' ii. 131, 295, 318,
319

INDEX

397

EDI

' Edinburgh Courant, The,' i. 98 n.,

389 ; ii. 258
' Edinburgh Evening Courant, The/

i. 380
'Edinburgh Flying Post, The,' i.

98 k., 389
' Edinburgh Gazette, The,' i. 98 n.,

380, 381, 385
' Edinburgh Ee-view,' i. 386 ; ii. 268
Edwards, H. Sutherland, his work

on 'The Illustrated Times,' ii. 251 ;

on 'The Graphic,' ii. 297 ; on

'The Standard,' ii. 337
Edwards, J. Passmore, proprietor

of 'The Echo; ii. 345; of 'The

Weekly Times,' ii. 354
Electric Telegraph, the, its service to

newspapers, ii. 138, 255, 256
Ehnsley, Peter, i. 206 n.
' England,' ii. 355
' English Churchman, The,' ii. 131
' Enghsh Currant, The,' i. 50
'Englishman,' Steele's, i. 88-95
' Englishman,' Clement's, ii. 12
' English Mechanic, The,' ii. 345
' English Mercurie,' the spurious, i.

4 n.
Entinck, John, editor of ' The Moni-
tor,' i, 151-155
' Era, The,' ii. 131, 295, 321, 323
Erskiue, Lord, i. 234, 239, 240, 243,

267
Escott, T. H. S., his work on

'The World,' ii. 306; on 'The

Standard,' ii. 337
' Essav on Women,' Thomas Potter's,

i. 173, 176, 177
' European Magazine, The,' i. 351
Evans, David Morier, of 'The

Standard' and 'The Hour,' ii. 337
Evans, F., i. 210
Evans, Dr. Sebastian, editor of ' The

People,' ii. 355
Evans, T., i. 206 «., 210
' Evening Chronicle,' James Silk

Buckingham's, ii. 28
' Evening Chronicle, The,' ii. 91, 95,

226
'Evening Herald, The,' ii. 240
' Evening News, The,' ii. 345
' Evening Post, The,' i. 67, 69, 102,

116
'Evening Standard, The,' ii. 275,
344

'Evening Star, The,' ii. 238, 271,

272
Ewart, William, ii. 100, 211, 212
'Examiner, The,' of Swift and

others, i. 76-79, 82, 88, 102
' Examiner, The,' of 1808, under the
Hunts, i. 336-351, 353, 361, 364 ;
ii- 10 ; under Albany Fonhlanque,
ii. 32, 37-44, 47-53, 63, 64, 76,
76, 95, 100, 101, 124, 169, 198,
220, 227, 248; afterwards, 249,
263, 288-291
' Exeter Mercury, The,' i. 98 n., 382
' Exeter Postmaster, The, i. 382
'Exeter Protestant Mercury, The,'

i. 382
'Express, The,' ii. 153, 225, 273

Faibeax, Sib Thomas, i. 17, 19
' Falkener's Journal,' i. 384
'Family Herald, The,' ii. 228
' Farmer, The,' ii. 131
Fawcett, Henry, ii. 291
Fawcett, Mrs. Henry, ii. 291
Feist, Henry M., ii. 321
'Felix Farley's Bristol Journal,' i.

200 ; ii. 134
Fell, Isaac, i. 198, 200
Fellowes, Dr., ii. 10, 37, 47
' Female Tatler, The,' i. 68
Fenn, George Manville, ii. 350
' Field, The,' ii. 242, 295, 319, 320
Fielding, Henry, i. 132, 141; his

share in 'The Champion,' i. 126,

132; 'The True Patriot,' i. 132;

' The Jacobite Journal,' i. 136,

136; ' The Covent Garden Journal,'

i. 140
' Figaro in London,' ii. 116, 117
Fildes, Luke, his work on ' The

Graphic,' ii. 297
' Financier, The,' ii. 318, 319
Finch, Lord, and Steele, i. 94
Finnerty, Peter, i. 287 n.
' Fishing Gazette, The,' ii. 320
Florio, John, on newsmongering,

i. 2
'Fly, The,' ii. 116
'Flying Post,' Ridpath's, i. 56, 57,

60, 64, 69, 79, 80, 82, 83 n., 102
'Flying Post and Medley, The,'

i. 103, 119
' Fog's Weekly Journal,' i. 122

398

INDEX

Tonblanque, Albany, ii. 37, 39, 47,
60 ; his work for ' The Morning
Ohronicle,' ii. 14, 37, 44, 88 ; for
'The Times,' ii. 15; for 'The
Examiner,' i. 849 ; ii. 32, 37-44,
47-53, 59, 198, 220, 288; for
' The Atlas,' ii. 46
Eonvive, editor of ' The Postman,'

i. 57
Eoote, Samuel, i. 129, 143 n., 146-

148, 223
Eorbes, Archibald, his work on ' The
Daily News,' ii. 280-283, 358 ; his
work on ' The World,' ii. 306, 308
Forster, John, his work on ' The
Daily News,' ii. 140, 143, 145; on
' The Examiner,' ii. 143, 249
' Fortnightly Review, The,' ii. 341
Foster, Birket, ii. 120
Fox, Charles James, on the law of
libel, i. 206, 230, 235; his Libel
Bill, i. 240, 241 ; on the persecu-
tion of the printers, i. 216
Fox, William Johnson, ii. 95, 101, 125
Francis, John, of ' The Athenseum,'

ii. 211, 229
Francis, Philip, i. 180, 143
Francis, Sir Philip, i. 143 n., 181,

190
Franklin, Benjamin, i. 387, 388, 889
Franklin, James, i. 387, 888
Eraser, James, press licencer, i. 52
Eraser, James, of ' The Morning

Chronicle,' ii. 91
Fraser, Peter, of ' The Times,' i. 284,

358
' Ei-ee Briton,' Arnall's, i. 120, 128
' Freeholder,' Addison's, i. 76, 99
'Freeholder's Journal, The,' i. 116
' Freeholder's Magazine, The,' i. 200
Freeman, Edward Alfred, ii. 248
'Freeman's Journal, The,' ii. 41,

258, 366
Frere, Hookham, his work on ' The

Anti- Jacobin,' i. 321, 324, 325
' Friend,' Coleridge's, i. 310
Fi'ost, Thomas, ii. 116, 121 n., 135 n.
' Fun,' ii. 298
' Funny Folks,' ii. 299
Furnivall, F. J., ii. 314

Gallenoa, ANTOirto, his work on
' The Times,' ii. 263

GLA

' Gallo-Belgieus,' i. 4 n.

Galton, Francis, ii. 314

Garnett, Jeremiah, of 'The Man-
chester Guardian,' ii. 362

Garnett, Richard, his work on
' The Examiner,' ii. 291 ; on ' The
Reader,' ii. 314

Garth, Samuel, i. 78

Gaskell, Mrs., ii. 314

Gaylard, Dr., i. 114

' Gazette de Londres, La,' i. 41 n.

'Gazetteer, The,' i. 119, 120, 123,
193, 209, 288, 250, 251

' Gazzetta, La,' of Venice, i. 4 n.

GeU, Sir John, i. 13

' General Advertiser,' Cooke's, i. 223,
237, 249-251

' General Advertiser,' Woodfall's,
i. 142, 192

' General Evening Post, The,' i. 197,
210

' General Postscript,' i. 68

' General Remark, The,' i. 68

' Generous London Morning Adver-
tiser, The,' i. 125

' Gentleman's Magazine, The,' 1 25-
LSO, 810

George LEI., his opposition to
Wilkes, i. 175, 179, 180; to
parliamentary reporting, i. 210;
Junius's letter to, i. 184, 188 ;
Leigh Hunt on, i. 342 ; Fon-
blanque on, ii. 42

George IV. as Prince of Wales, i.
139, 223, 254, 266, 267, 276 ; as
Prince Regent, i. 276, 277, 342,
346 ; as king, ii. 1-6, 10, 43

Gibson, Milner, and the ' taxes on
knowledge,' ii. 211-219, 222, 230

Gielgud, Adam, his work on ' The
St. James's Gazette,' ii. 341

Giftard, Stanley Lees, editor of ' The
Standard,' ii. 23

Giffen, Robert, his work on ' The
Daily News,' ii. 285; on 'The
Statist,' ii. 319

QiiFord, John, editor of 'The Anti-
Jacobin Review,' i. 326 n.

Gifford, William, editor of 'The
A nti- Jacobin ' and ' The Quarterly
Review,' i. 321, 323, 326 n.

Gilbert, John, ii. 120

Gladstone, William Ewart, his con-
nection with ' The Guardian,' ii.

INDEX

399

131 ; his share in abolishing ' the
taxes on knowledge,' ii. 216-217,
221, 230, 231; 'The Times' on,
ii. 269 ; ' The Echo ' on, ii. 275 ;
' The Spectator ' on, ii. 292 ; ' The
Pall Mall Gazette ' on, ii. 292 ;
' The Weekly Dispatch ' on, ii.
352 ; on ' The Times,' ii. 329, 335 ;
on ' The Daily News,' ii. 335
■' Glasgow Courant, The,' i. 381
' Glasgow Herald, The,' i. 381 ; ii.

2.57, 328, 362
' Glasgow .Toumal, The,' i. 381
^ Glasgow News, The,' ii. 362
' Globe, The,' i. 287, 288, 365 ; ii.

27-29
'Globe and TrayeUer, The,' ii. 28,

29, 89 n., 95, 99, 225, 276, 344
■* Gloucester Journal, The,' i. 98 n.,

383
Glover, Serjeant, and 'The Morning

Chronicle,' ii. 168
Olyn, Serjeant, on the law of libel,

i. 230, 2.32
Godkin, E. L., his work on ' The

Daily News,' ii. 285
Goede, 0. A. Gottlieb, i. 371, 372
Goldsmith, Oliver, his contributions

to ' The Public Ledger,' i. 197
Goodall, Edward, his work for ' The
Illustrated London News,' ii. 296
Gordon, Thomas, i. 110-113, 127
' Gospel Magazine, The,' i. 202
Grant, Albert, proprietor of 'The

Echo,' ii. 345
Grant, James, editor of ' The Morning

Advertiser,' ii. 204, 286
' Graphic, The,' ii. 297, 298
Gray, Edward Dwyer, of 'The

PVeeman's Journal,' ii. 366
Gray, Perry's partner in ' The Morn-
ing Chronicle,' i. 261, 263
' Gray's Inn Journal, The,' i. 143 n.
Greenwood, Frederick, his work on
' The Dlusti-ated Times,' ii. 251 ;
on 'The Pall Mall Gazette,' ii.
273, 339, 340; on 'The St.
James's Gazette,' ii. 340, 341
Greenwood, James, his work on ' The
Pall Mall Gazette,' ii. 274, 344 ;
on 'The Daily Telegraph,' ii. 285
GreviUe, Charles, his gossip about
'The Times,' ii. 69-75, 77-82,
104-106, 110, 151, 152, 165, 169-

HAR

172, 174-183, 191-193, 197, 199-
201, 203, 205-208; about 'The
Morning Chronicle,' ii. 93, 105-107,
1.51, 152,169, 170, 181,205; about
' The Standard,' ii. 169 ; about ' The
Morning Post,' ii. 205, 226, 243 ;
about 'The Daily News,' ii. 202;
about 'The Morning Herald,' ii.
191, 204; about 'The Morning
Advertiser,' ii. 202, 203; about
'The Press,' ii. 191; about 'The
Examiner,' ii. 169
Griffin, William, i. 206 w.
Grote, George, ii. 13, 47, 51, 100, 260
Grub Street, in Swift's day, i. 82 ;

in Fielding's day, i. 134
' Grub Street Journal, The,' i. 126
' Guardian,' Steele's, i. 87, 88, 94
' Guardian, The,' of 1846, ii. 131,

250, 345
Guizot, Thackeray on, ii. 99 ; and

Lord Palmerston, ii. 106
Guthrie, William, i. 127, 129, 136-
138

' HArRDBBSSBKS' WeEKLT JoTJKNAL,

The,' ii. 318
' Halfpenny Posts,' i. 119

Hamber, Captain, editor of ' The
Standard,' li. 285 ; of ' The Hour,'
ii. 337
Hamerton, P. G., ii. 314

' Hammersmith Observer, The,' ii.
324

Hannay, James, ii. 251

Hansard, the printer, i. 335

Harcourt, Sir William Vernon, his
work on ' The Morning Chronicle,'
ii. 163, 157; on 'The Times,' ii.
246, 264; on 'The Saturday Re-
view,' ii. 248

Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford, i. 72,
/6

Harmer, Alderman James, of 'The
Weekly Dispatch,' ii. 101-3

Harney, Julian, editor of 'The
Northern Star,'ii. 114

Harris, Benjamin, editor of 'Intelli-
gence,' i. 66

Harris, Elizabeth and John, printers,
i. 74 n.

Harris, John, editor of ' The Patriot,'
i. 95 n.

400

INDEX

Harrison, Frederic, ii. 291
Harvey, Daniel Whittle, ii. 95, 124,

355
Harwood, Philip, editor of 'The

Saturday Review,' ii. 346
Hastings', Warren, i. 239
Hatton, Joseph, ii. 118 n.
Hawkesworth, John, editor of ' The

Adventurer,' i. 142
Hayward, Abraham, his work on

'The Morning Ohroniole,' ii. 153,

155, 157, 158, 207; on 'The

Times,' ii. 246, 330, 334, 356 ; on

' The Saturday Review,' ii. 248
Hazlitt, William, hia work on ' The

Examiner,' i. 345, 348, 364, 369 ;

on 'The Morning Chronicle,' i.

364-366 ; on ' The Atlas,' ii. 46
Hazlitt, William, the younger, ii.

91
Henning, Archibald, his vfork on

' Punch,' ii. 117
Henty, G. A., his work on 'The

Standard,' ii. 337
' Heraclitus Ridens,' i. 46
'Herapath's Railway Journal,' ii.

132
'Hereford Times, The,' i. 98 n., 382
Herkomer, Hubert, his work on

' The Graphic,' ii. 297
Hervey, William, his work on ' The

Illustrated London News,' ii. 120
Hetherington, Henry, ii. 53, 63 ; his

' Poor Man's Guardian,' ii. 56-61,

113 ; his ' Twopenny Dispatch,' ii.

58, 102, 113
Heylin, Peter, i. 12, 20
Heywond, Abel, of Manchester, ii.

57
Hibbert, Julian, ii. 55
Higgins, Matthew (Jacob Omnium"),

his work on ' The Times,' ii. 186
Hill, Dr. Birkbeok, his work on ' The

World,' ii. 306
Hill, Frank Harrison, his editing of

'The Northern Whig,' ii. 272 ; of

'The Daily News,' ii. 272, 273,

285, .335, 358
HiU, Sir John, i. 141
Hodgskin, Thomas, editor of ' The

London Telegraph,' ii. 235
Hoe's rotary printing machine, ii.

254, 338
Hogarth, George, ii. 91, 144

Holl, Frank, his work on ' The

Graphic,' ii. 297
Holland, liOrd, ii. 90
Hone, WilUam, i. 353, 354
Hood, Thomas, ii. 118
Hood, Tom, the younger, ii. 298
Hook, John, ii. 9
Hook, Theodore, his work on 'John

Bull,' ii. 4-9
Hook, Walter Farqnhar, ii. 9
Hope, A. J. B. Beresford, ii. 282, 248
Home, John ; see Tooke, John Home
Houghton, John, i. 51 n.
'Hour, The,' ii. 387
'Household Narrative, The,' ii. 214,

217
'Household Words,' ii. 214, 301
Hughes, Thomas, ii. 314
Hume, Joseph, ii. 8, 46, 54, 99, 212,

250
Hunt, Frederick Knight, of 'The

Daily News,' u. 143, 149 «., 159-

163, 213
Hunt, Henry, i. 834, 337
Hunt, Henry Leigh, i. 371 ; ii. 10
Hunt, James Henry Leigh, his early

work, i. 836, 336 ; work on 'The

Examiner,' i. 386-49, 364, 865,

870, 871 ; ii. 37 ; his ' Indicator,'

i. 369, 370 ; his ' London Journal,'

ii. 116, 121 n.
Hunt, John, of ' The Examiner,' i.

385, 886, 338-847, 349-351, 368,

871 ; ii. 10
Hunt, Stephen, i. 335
Hunt, Thornton, ii. 98, 235, 241, 267
Hunt, William, ii. 135 n., 161-163,

189 re.
Hunter, William Alexander, his work

on ' 'The Examiner,' ii. 291
Hui't, William, 108
Hutchinson, Colonel, and the news

writers, i. 14
Hutton, Richard Holt, his work on

'The Spectator,' ii. 250; on 'The

Reader,' ii. 814
Huxley, T. H., his work on 'The

Academy,' ii. 316 ; on ' Nature,'

ii. 316
Hyde, Chief Justice, i. 38, 39

' Illustrated London News, The,'
ii. 119, 120, 124, 226, 227, 235,
261, 294-298

INDEX

401

\'

' Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic

News, The,' ii. 298
' Illustrated Times, The,' ii. 251, 252,

295, 296, 300
' Independent Whig, The,' i. 113 n.,

353
' Indicator,' Leig-h Hunt's, i. 369
Ingram, Herbert, of ' The Illustrated

London News,' ii. 119, 235, 295,

296
'Inquirer, The,' ii. 131
' Intelligence, Domestic and Foreign,'

i. 55
' Intelligencer,' L'Estrange's, i. 34, 37
' Ipswich Journal, The,' i. 883
Ireland, Alexander, of ' The Man-
chester Examiner,' ii. 362
' Irish Times, The,' ii. 258, 365, 366
' Iron,' ii. 318
'IronTimes, The,'ii. 132

J.iCKSoif, William:, editor of ' The

Morning Post,' i. 223
Jackson, Sir William, one of the
founders of ' The Daily News,' ii.
143
' Jacohite Journal,' I'ielding's, i. 135-

137 ___^
Jeff'eries, fiichard, his newspaper

articles, ii. 380
.Teffireys, Chief Justice, i. 44, 46, 50
Jenour, Jlatthew, of 'The Flying
Post ' and ' The Daily Advertiser,'
i. 119, 141
Jerdan, William, i. 282 «., 286, 368,

383
JeiTold, Blanchard, ii. 143, 347
Jerrold, Douglas, ii. 98, 117, 347
.Jevons, Stanley, ii. 316
' John Bull,' ii. 6-10, 29, 66, 60, 71
Johnson, Henry, inventor of logo-
graphic printing, i. 255
Johnson, James, of ' The Standard,'

ii. 226, 239, 240, 336
Johnson, Samuel, his parliamentary
reports, i. 129; 'The Rambler,'
i. 142, 143 n.; ' The Idler,' i. 144,
145 ; and Wilkes, i. 156, 160, 161
'Johnson's Sunday Monitor,' i. 290
Jones, Griffith, editor of ' The Pub-
lic Ledger,' i. 197
Jonson, Ben, on newsmongering, i.
2, 3

VOL. II.

' Judy,' ii. 299

Junius, the letters of, i. 149, 182 ;
concerning Wilkes, i. 183-186 ; to
the Duke of Grafton, i. 184-188 ;
to George III., i. 188, 189, 204,
225, 229 ; on the law of libel, i.
205, 229 ; on the case of the par-
liamentary reporters, i. 215, 216

Keaeslet, Geoese, i. 172, 206 n.
Keats, John, i. 345, 369, 370
Kebbel, T. E., his work on 'The

Standard,' ii. 337
' Keene's Bath Journal,' i. 98 ft.
Kemble, John, i, 336, 339 n.
Kendrick, William, i. 206 n.
Kennet, IBishop, his work on ' The

Medley,' i. 77
King, Dr. William, editor of ' The

Examiner,' i. 76; of 'The

Dreamer,' i. 142
' Kingdom's Intelligencer, The,' i. 30,

31,34
' Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer,

The,' i. 10, 11
Kinglake, Alexander William, ii.

196
Kingsley, Charles, ii. 314
Knight, Charles, ii. 58, 211
Knowles, James, his work on 'The

Morning Post' and 'The Nine-
teenth Century,' ii. 345
Knox, Alexander, his work on ' The

Times,' ii. 186
Koenig, Frederick, i. 356
Koenig Printing Press, the, i. 366,

357

Labouchbee, Heney, ii. 809, 310 ;
his relations with 'The Daily
News,' ii. 272, 283 ; his work on
'The World,' ii. 306, 307, 310,
319 ; on ' Truth,' ii. 309-311

'Lady's Pictorial, The,' ii. 298

Lamb, Charles, his contributions to
'The Morning Chronicle,' i. 265,
278; to 'The Mornigg Post,' i.
303-306 ; to 'The Albion,' i. 307 ;
to ' The Examiner,' i. 345, 348

' Lancet, The,' ii. 295

'Land and Water,' ii. 320

Landells, Ebenezer, ii. 117

D D

402

index:

Landor, Walter Savage, ii. 145

Lane, George, i. 30^-309; ii. 27

Lardner, Dr. Dionysius, ii. 159

Latey, John, editor of 'The Illus-
trated London News,' ii. 298

Laud, Archbishop, i. 9, 12

' Law Times, The,' ii. 820

Lawson, Edward, of 'The Daily
Telegraph,' ii. 242

Layard, Austen Henry, ii. 186

' Leader, The,' ii. 250, 813

Leech, John, his work on ' Punch,'
ii. 118; on 'The Illustrated Lon-
don News, ii. 120 ; on ' The Field,'
ii. 320

' Leeds Mercury, The,' i. 382, 383 ;
ii. 44, 45, 134, 258, 276, 328, 362

Leorge, Edward, editor of 'The
Whitehall Review,' ii. 308

' Leicester Journal, The,' i. 382

' Leigh Hunt's London Journal,' ii.
116,121m.

Lemon, Mark, his work on ' Punch,'
ii. 117, 118, 299 ; on ' The Il-
lustrated London News,' ii. 118,
119, 120 ; on ' The Field,' ii. 320

Leng, Sir William, of 'The Sheffield
Daily Telegraph,' ii. 363

Lenthall, Speaker, i. 20

Le Sage, John Merry, of ' The Daily
Telegraph,' ii. 242

L'Estrange, Sir Roger, i. 32, 52 ;
his ' Considerations for the Regu-
lation of the Press,' i. 82 ; ' sur-
veyor of the imprimery,' i. 88, 37,
47 ; his 'Intelligencer 'and ' Nevre,'
i. 34-87, 39; his ' Puhlic Intelli-
gence,' i. 39, 40 ; his ' City Mer-
cury,' i. 41 ; his ' Ohservator,' i. 47,
76

Levy, Joseph Moses, of ' The Daily
Telegraph,' ii. 236, 242

Lewes, George Henry, editor of ' The
Leader,' ii. 250

Lewis, Sir George Oornewall, his
Newspaper Stamp Act, ii. 221,224,
228

Libel, the law of, Lord Mansfield's
ruling on, i. 205, 206, 229, 230,
233, 284 ; Serjeant Glyn's motion
on, i. 280 ; Dowdeswell's bill for
amending, i. 282 ; Fox's bill, i. 240

Libel Act of 1792, i. 229, 240, 241,
243, 247, 352

Libel actions before 1792 — against
Daniel Defoe, i. 103, 104; B. N.
Defoe, i. 113; Nicholas Mist,
i. 113, 114 ; George Read, i. 114;
John Wilkes, i. 170, 173, 175,
177 ; John Almon, i. 204, 233 ;
H. S. Woodfall, i. 205, 234, 238 ;
John MUler, i. 206, 233, 236;
Henry Bate, i. 222; John Wil-
liams, i. 234; William Woodfall,
i. 234 ; the Dean of St. Asaph,
i. 284 ; John Home, i. 236 ; Mary
Say, i. 237, 238 ; Sampson Perry,
i. 238; Stoekdale, i. 289; John
Walter, i. 266, 267; Tattersall,
i. 271

Libel actions after 1792, i. 248, 244 ;
against James Perry, i, 266, 348 ;
John Parry, i. 274, 327; Jean
Peltier, i. 883 ; William Oobbett,
i. 334, 335 ; John and Leigh Hunt,
i. 343, 847, 850

Licensing Act of 1662, i. 28, 29, 42 ;
Charles II.'s proclamation in lieu
of, i. 48, 45 ; renewed in 1685, i. 50 ;
and in 1693, i. 52 ; abolished in
1695, i. 52

' Life,' il. 311

' Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford
Mercury, The,' i. 381

Linton, Mrs. Lynn, her work on
' The World,' ii. 806

Litchfield, Leonard, i. 39

' Literary Courier of Grub Street,
The,' i. 125

' Literary Gazette, The,' i. 368 ; ii.
318, 314

' Literary Journal, The,' ii. 86 n.

Little, William, ii. 119

' Liverpool Advertiser, The,' i. 882

' Liverpool Courant, The,' i. 381

' Liverpool Courier, The,' ii. 362

' Liverpool Daily Post, The,' ii. 257,
271, 327, 362

' Liverpool Mercury, The,' ii. 45,
257, 278, 279, 362

Livesey, Joseph, ii. 115

Lloyd, Chai-les, his work on ' The
Morning Post,' i. 308

Lloyd, Edward, newspaper pro-
prietor, ii. 120-122, 254, 338,
339

Lloyd's coffee-house, i. 196

' Lloyd's Evening Post,' i. 197

INDEX

403

LLO

■* Lloyd's Illustrated London News,'

ii.l21
' Lloyd's List,' i. 286
■" Lloyd's Penny Atlas,' ii. 121
' Lloyd's Penny WeeMy Miscellany,'

ii. 121
* Lloyd's Weekly London News-
paper,' ii. 122, 124, 125, 227, 263,

254, 347, 348
Locke, John, i. 42, 53
Locker, Arthur, editor of ' The

Graphic,' ii. 297
Lockyer, F. Norman, his work on

' The Iteader,' ii. 314 ; on

' Nature,' ii. 316
Logographic printing, "Walter's and

Johnson's, i. 255
' London Advertiser and Literary

Gazette, The,' i. 141
' London Chronicle, The,' i. 144, 197,

289
' London Courant, The,' i. 50, 236
' London Crier, The,' i. 124
' London Daily Chronicle and

Olerkenwell News, The,' ii. 338
' London Daily Post and General

Advertiser, The,' i. 141, 192
' London Dispatch, The,' ii. 115
' London Evening Post, The,' i. 197,

204, 206, 210, 233, 250
' London Gazette, The,' i. 40, 41, 64,

71, 76, 102, 119, 238; ii. 11, 132
' London Intelligencer, The,' i. 50
' London Journal,' Trenchard's, i.

110, 119, 123
' London Journal,' Pierce Egan's,

ii. 12, 121 n., 228
' London Journal,' Leigh Hunt's, ii.

116, 121 n.
' London Magazine, The,' i. 127
' London Mercury, The,' i. 60 ;

another, ii. 115
' London Museum, The,' i. 204
' London Packet, The,' i. 210, 236
' London Post, The,' i. 56
' London Review,' Charles Mackay's,

ii. 250
' London Review,' Sir William

Molesworth's, ii. 36, 51
' London Scotsman,' ii. 280
' London Telegraph, The,' ii. 235
Long Parliament, newspaper censor-
ship of, i. 9, 14, 17-23; 'Diurnal

Occurrences ' of, i. 9, 10 ; ' King-

MCG

dom's Weekly Intelligencer ' of,
1.10

Longman, Thomas, i. 196

LoveU, Daniel, of ' The Statesman,'
i. 368

LoveU, John, of the Press Associa-
tion and ' The Liverpool Mercury,'
ii. 279, 362

' Lover,' Steele's, i. 95

Lovett, WiUiam, ii. 55

Lowe, Robert W., Lord Sherbrooke,
his work on ' The Times,' ii. 186,
223

Lubbock, Sir John, ii. 316

Lucas, Frederick, of ' The Tablet,'
ii. 126-129

Lucas, Samuel, editor of ' The Morn-
ing Star,' ii. 238, 271

Lucas, Samuel, editor of ' The
Press,' ii. 238

Lucy, Henry W., his work on ' The
World,' ii. 306, 308; on 'May-
fair,' iii. 308, 309 ; on 'The Dailr
News,' ii. 335, 359

Ludlow, John Malcolm, editor of
' The Reader,' ii. 314

Mabbott, Gilbert, press licencer
under the Long Parliament, i. 18,
19

McCarthy, Justin, his work on ' The
Morning Star,' ii. 271; on 'The
Daily News,' ii. 285, 335

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, his
contributions to ' The Times,' ii.
16, 108

MacOoll, Norman, editor of 'The
Athenseum,' ii. 317

McCuUagh Torrens ; see Torrens,
W. T. McCullagh

McOuUoch, John Ramsay, editor of
'The Scotsman,'! 386

Macdonald, — , editor of ' The Star,'
i. 272

Macdonald, John, his work on ' The
Examiner,' ii. 291; on 'The
Weekly Dispatch,' ii. 350; on
' The Daily News,' ii. 358

Macdonald, John C, of 'The Times,'
ii. 187,200, 333

Macdonald, Mrs. Frederika, ii. 291

McGillivray, Simon, of ' The Morn-
ing Chronicle,' ii. 87, 90

BI)2

404

INDEX

Macliay, Alexander, ii. 153

Mackay, Charles, his work on ' The
Morning Chronicle,' ii. 90 n., 91,
154; on 'The Daily News,' ii.
144 ; on ' The Illustrated London
News,' ii. 2.S5 ; on ' The London
Telegraph,' ii. 2.35; on 'The
London Review,' ii. 250 ; on ' The
Times,' ii. 263.

Mackintosh, Sir James, i. 263, 269,
270, 272, 293-296, 833, 362, 363

Maclaren, Charles, of 'The Scots-
man,' i. 386

Maeliver, Peter Stewart, of ' The
Western Daily Press,' ii. 361

Maddick, George, of ' The Sporting
Life.'ii. 321

Maginn, William, ii. 9, 22, 23

Mahony, Francis (Father Prout),
ii. 225

Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, his work
on ' The Saturday Review,' ii. 248

Mallet, — , of 'The Daily Oourant,'
i. 66

' Manchester Courier, The,' ii. 276,
862, 363

' Manchester Examiner, The,' ii. 257,
276, 361, 362

' Manchester Guardian, The,' ii. 44,
45, 257, 276, 278, 828, 361, 862

' Manchester Mercury, The,' ii. 44,
45

Manley, Mrs., her work on 'The
Female Tatler,' i. 68, 74, 79 ; on
' The Examiner,' i. 78, 79, 88

Mansfield, Chief Justice, i. 204-206,
2i^9, 230

Martineau, Harriet, her work on
' The Daily News,' ii. 160, 161

Martyn, Thomas, i. 355

' Marylehone Mercury, The,' ii. 325

Masson, David, editor of ' The
Reader,' ii. 314

Maurice, Frederick Denison, ii. 814

' Mayfair,' ii. 308, 309

Maxwell, John, ii. 226, 300

Mayhew, Augustus, his work on
'Punch,' ii. 118 ; on ' The Illus-
trated London News,' ii. 120; on
' The Illustrated Times,' ii. 251

Mayhew, Edward, editor of ' The
Poor Man's Guardian,' ii. 60

Mayhew, Henry, his work on
'Figaro in London,' ii. 116, 117;

on ' The Illustrated London News,''
ii. 120 ; on ' The Morning Chro-
nicle,' ii. 155 ; on ' The Morning
News,' ii. 238

Mayhew, Horace, his work on
' Punch,' ii. 118 ; on ' The Illus-
trated London News,' ii. 120 ; on
' Lloyd's Newspaper,' ii. 227

Maynwaring, Arthur, editor of ' The
Medley,' i. 78

Meadows, Kenny, his work on ' The
niustrated London News,' ii. 120

'Mechanics' Magazine, The,' ii. 318

' Medley, The,' i. 77, 79, 80, 82, 103

Melbourne, Lord, and John Black,
ii. 92

'Mercator,' Defoe's, i. 101, 103

' Mercure Francjais,' i. 11 n.

' Mercure Scandale,' Defoe's, i. 63

'Mercure Suisse,' i. 11 n.

' Mercuries,' the old, i. 10, 11

' Mercurius Anglicus,' i. 13 n.

' Mercurius Aqnaticus,' JohnTaylor's,
i. 13 n.

' Mercurius Aulieus,' Birkenhead's,
i. 11, 12, 15, 29, 379

' Mercurius Britannicus,' Nedham's,
i. 12, 13, 16, 23

' Mercurius Oaledonius,' i. 379

' Mercurius Librarius,' i. 41, 42

' Mercurius Melancholicus,' i. 17

' Mercurius Pragmaticus,' Nedham's^
i. 16, 17, 18, 20

' Mercurius Politicus,' Defoe's, i. 104,,
105

'Mercurius Politicus,' Nedham's,
i. 20-23

'Mercurius Publicus,' N edham's,
i. 24, 29, 34

' Mercurius Rusticus,' i. 13 n.

Mercury Women, i. 11 n.

Merivale, Herman, his work on ' The
World,' ii. 306

Merle, Gibbons, editor of 'The Globe,'
ii. 20 -n., 29

' Metropolitan, The,' ii. 325

Miall, Edward, of 'The Noncon-
formist, ii. 129-131

' Middlesex Journal, The,' i. 198-201,
209, 237

Miles, Frank, his work for 'Life,'
ii. 311

Bliles, Sir William, ii. 230

'Military Scribe, The,' i. 13 n.

INDEX

i05

MIL

TMill, James, i. 3-26 n. ; ii. 12, 14, 36
Mill, John Stuart, ii. 12, 13, 36, 49-

51, 289, 291 ; his contributions to

'The TraveUer,' ii. 28; to 'The

Morning Chronicle,' ii. 14 ; to

' The Examiner,' ii. 291
Miller, John, i. 206, 210, 233, 236
Milton, John, on press censorship,

i. 15 ; as press censor, i. 21, 22 ;

work on ' Mercurius Politious,' i.

22 ; attacked by L'Estrange, i. 32
Minto, William, his work on ' The

Examiner,' ii. 291
' Mirror of Parliament, The,' ii. 91
Mist, Nicholas, i. 102, 106, 114, 121
* Mist's Weekly Journal,' i. 102, 105,

106, 108, 109, 112, 113, 115, 116,

122, 126
Mitfoi-d, Mary EusseU, i. 365, 366 n.,

368
' Modern Society,' ii. 312
' Modem Truth,' ii. 312
Molesworth, Sir William, ii. 36, 96,

100
' Money,' ii. 318

' Monitor, The,' i. 144, 151-155, 162
' Monthly Magazine, The,' i. 366
' Monthly Register,' Buckley's, i. 67
Montgomery, James, editor of ' The

Sheffield Iris,' i. 383
Moore, Edward, i. 142
Moore, Richard, ii. 211
Mooi'e, Thomas, his contributions to

'The Morning Chronicle,' i. 263,

364; ii. 14; to 'The Times,' i.

366 n. ; ii. 16, 108, 111 n. ; to the

Dublin ' Press,' i. 384
' Moral Reformer, The,' ii. 115
Morley, Henry, editor of ' The

Examiner,' ii. 249
Morley, John, ii. 189 n. ; his work

on "The Saturday Review,' ii. 248,

342 ; on ' The Morning Star,' ii.

271 ; on ' The PaU MaU Gazette,'

ii. 341, 342
MorleTf, Samuel, ii. 272
'Morning Advertiser, The,' i. 285,

286, 364; ii. 159, 202-204, 224,

242, 280, 281, 286, 327
■'Morning Chronicle, The,' under

WiUiam WoodfaU, i. 192, 206,

210, 217-220, 224, 234, 235, 250,

252, 261 ; under James Perry, i.

261-266,268, 270, 273, 279, 287 n,,

MUR

292, 343, 354, 363 ; ii. 4, 5 ; under
John Black, i. 363 ; ii. 11-15, 17,
20, 36, 37, 44, 48, 54n., 77, 87-95,
98, 105, 168; under Andrew
Doyle, ii. 93, 106, 107, 136, 138,
140, 143, 148, 151, 152, 186;
under John Douglas Cook, ii.
153-155, 180, 181, 192, 224 ; after-
wards, ii. 158, 159, 206, 226, 237,
242
'Morning Herald, The,' under Bate
Dudley, i. 222, 236, 253, 254,
260, 273 ; afterwards, i. 354, 367,
371 ; ii. 17-20, 89 n., 95, 96, 104,
136, 138, 143, 148, 159, 175, 191,
196 n , 202, 203, 224, 225, 239,

240, 242, 337

' Morning Journal, The,' ii. 20, 25,
30-32

'Morning News, The,' ii. 237, 238

' Morning Post, The,' under Henry
Bate, i. 220-223 ; under William
Jackson, John Taylor, and others,
i. 223, 224, 254, 260, 261, 270,
271 ; under Daniel Stuart, i. 271,
273-275,292-309,316-319; after-
wards, i. 346, 364, 367; ii. 19,
20, 25, 89 n., 95, 104, 136, 159,
204, 205, 224 ; under Sir Alger-
non Borthwick, ii. 226, 243, 244,
270, 286, 308, 345, 357

'Morning Star, The,' ii. 238, 239,

241, 242, 271, 272, 341

Morris, Mowbray, of ' The Times,'
ii. 213

Mortimer, James, of Figaro,' ii. 312

Moseley, Canon, his work on ' The
Times,' ii. 186

Muddiman, Henry, i. 25, 29, 34, 40, 49

Mudford, William, editor ol ' The
Courier,' ii. 25, 30

Mudford, WiUiam Henry, editor of
' The Standard,' ii. 336

Murphy, Arthur, editor of ' The
Gray's Inn Journal,' i. 143 n. ; of
'The Test,' i. 143; of 'The
Auditor,' i. 162

Murray, E. C. Grenville, ii. 301, 807 ;
his work on ' Vanity Fair,' ii. 302,
304; on 'The Queen's Mes-
senger,' ii. 302, 303; on 'The
World,' ii. 304, 306; on 'Pan,'
ii. 309; on 'Truth,' ii. 311; on
other papers, ii. 301, 304

406

INDEX

MUR

Blurray, John, the elder, i. 206 n.
Murray, John, the younger, ii. 22

' Nation, The,' ii. 28, 366

' National Omnibus, The,' ii. 59

National Press Agency, the, ii. 277

' National Eeformer, The,' ii. 252

' Nature,' ii. 316

Nedham, Marchmont, his ' Mercurius

Britannicus,' i. 12, 13, 16; his

' Mercurius Pragmaticus,' i. 16-

18, 20 ; his ' Mercurius Politicus,'

i. 20-24 ; his ' Public Intelligencer,'

i. 23, 24 ; his later occupations,

i. 25, 26, 29, 32
' New England Courant, The,' i. 387,

388
' New Monthly Magazine, The,'

1.366
' New News,' i. 3 n.
' New Times, The,' i. 286, 359, 360 ;

ii. 19, 25
' New "Weekly Dispatch, The,' ii.

102
Newberry, the bookseller, i. 144,

196
Newberry, Nathaniel, old printer and

bookseller, i. 4, 5
' Newcastle Chronicle, The,' ii. 257,

328, 362
' Newcastle Courant, The,' i. 98 n.

381 ; ii. 134
' Newcastle Daily Journal, The,'

ii. 258, 362
Newcombe, Thomas, i. 23, 39
Newman, William, ii. 217
' News,' John Hunt's, i. 336
' News,' L'Estrange's, i. 34, 40
' News from Spain,' i. 4
' News of the World, The,' ii. 122,

227, 354
' News out of Kent,' i. 3 n.
Newsletters in medisBYal and Tudor

times, i. 2 ; in Charles II.'s day,

,i. 48, 58
News pamphlets before newspapers,

i. 2, 4-7
Newspaper Act of 1798, the, i. 245,

327, 328, 352
Newspaper Press Association for the

Repeal of the Paper Duty, ii. 211
Newspaper Registration, i. 245, 327
Newspaper stamp, instituted in

OPP

1712, i. 80, 81 ; increased, i. 118^

225, 244, 245, 291 ; ii. 53, 57,

227 ; reduced, ii. 60-68, 112, 209 ;

abolished, ii. 209-224, 227
Newspaper Stamp Act of 1855,.

ii. 224, 227
' Nineteenth Century, The,' ii. 345
' Nonconformist, The,' ii. 129-131
' Noon Gazette, The,' i. 237
North, Dr. John, i. 49
North, Roger, i. 49
'North British Mail, The,' ii. 362
' North Briton,' WUkes's,i. 157-173,.

175, 177, 181 ; Bingley's, i. 177,

200, 202, 203
' Northampton Mercury, The,' i. 382
'Northern Star, The,' ii. 114
'Northern Tatler, The,' i. 380
' Northern Whig, The,' ii. 258, 272,,

366
' Norwich Courant, The, i. 98 n. 381
'Norwich Gazette, The,' i. 381
' Norwich Journal, The,' i. 381
' Norwich Mercury, The,' i. 381
' Norwich Postman, The,' i. 98 n.,.

381

O'Brien, Jambs Bbonteeeb, editor
of ' The Poor Man's Guardian,' ii.
60

'Observator,' L'Estrange's, i. 47

' Observator,' Tutchin's, i. 61 ; con-
tinued by Ridpath, i. 69, 82

' Observer, The,' i. 290 ; ii. 12, 17,
18 n., 284, 355

'Occasional Writer,' Bolingbroke's,
i. 117

O'Connell, Daniel, ii. 44, 63, 85, 86,.
99

O'Connor, Feaigus, and ' The North-
ern Star,' ii. 114

O'Donnell, Frank Hugh, ii. 345

' Old England, or the Broad-Bottom
Journal,' i. 136, 137

'Old Whig,' Addison's, i. 100

' Oldcastle Letters,' Bolingbroke's,.
i. 117

Oldmixon, John, i. 77

Oliphant, Laurence, ii. 250, 314

Oliver, Alderman, i. 211-216

Onslow, Arthur, i. 127

Onslow, George, i. 209, 235

Oppenheim, Plenry, ii. 272

INDEX

407

OKA

' Oracle, The/ i. 270, 293

' Orange Gazette, The,' i. 50

Orme, Eliza, her work on 'The

Weekly Dispatch,' ii. 350
Orford, Earl of; see Walpole, Sir

Robert
Oshorn, Robert D., his work on ' The

WeeHy Dispatch,' ii. 350
' Gaborn, Mother,' i. 120, 123
Osborne, Lord Sidney Godolphin

(S. G. 0.), his work on 'The

Times,' ii. 186, 200, 333
Oxenford, John, ii. 186
Oxford, Earl of, see Harley, Robert
' Oxford Gazette, The,' i. 39, 40

'Pall Mall Gazette, The,' under
Frederick Greenwood, ii. 273, 274,
292, 304, 339, 340, 344, 380 ; under
John Morley, ii. 341, 342 ; under
W. T. Stead, ii. 342-344, 381

Palmer, Professor, his work on ' The
Standard,' ii. 337

Palmerston, Viscount, ii. 25, 269,
301 ; and 'The Times,' ii. 105-107,
179-182, 204, 244, 262 ; and ' The
Morning Ohronicle,' ii. 106, 107,
180, 181, 205; and ' The Morning
Post,' ii. 205, 226, 243

'Pan,' ii. 309

Paper duty, the, reduction of, ii. 53,
112, 209 ; abolition of, ii. 229-231

Parkes, Joseph, ii. 90

' Parliamentary Intelligencer, The,'
i. 24, 29, 30

Parliamentary proceedings, reports
of, under the Long Parliament,
i. 9, 10, 19, 126 ; under the Com-
monwealth, i. 24, 29 ; under "Wil-
liam III., i. 59 ; under George I.,
i. 126 ; by Abel Boyer, i. 127 ; by
Cave and others, i. 126-130, 208 ;
by WiUiam Woodfall, i. 207, 208,
217 ; the right of publishing, se-
cured, i. 208-217

Parry, John, of ' The Com-ier,' i. 274

'Passages in Parliament,' Butter's
and others, i. 10

' Patriot,' John Harris's, i. 95 n,

' Patriot,' Josiah Gender's, ii. 45, 126

Pattison, Mark, ii. 314, 316

Paxton, Sir Joseph, one of the
founders of ' The DaHy News,' ii.
223 '

POL

Peel, Sir Robert, ii. 23, 24, 84, 85

Peltier, Jean, i. 333

' Pen and Pencil,' ii. 251

' Pennsylvania Gazette, The,' i. 389

' Penny Age, The,' ii. 115

' Penny Bell's Life, The,' ii. 321

' Penny Illustrated Paper, The,' ii.
296

' Penny Magazine,' Charles Knight's,
ii. 59, 60, 116

'Penny Papers for the People,'
Hetherington's, ii. 66

'Penny Satirist, The,' ii. 115, 116 n.

' Penny Sunday Times,' ii. 121

'People, The,' ii. 355

Perceval, Spencer, i. 277

'Perfect Diurnal, The,' i. 19

Perrot, Charles, i. 40

Perry, James, his early occupations,
i. 248-251 ; work on ' The Gazet-
teer,' i. 261-253, 261 ; his manage-
ment of ' The Morning Chronicle,'
i. 261-266, 268, 278, 279, 343,
363, 365-367 ; ii. 12

Perry, Sampson, i. 238

Phillips, Sir Richard, i. 299

Phillips, Samuel, of ' The Times,' ii.
186, 189 n.

Phillips, Watts, his work on
'Punch,' ii. 118; his work on
' Town Talk,' ii. 300

Picton, James Allanson, his work
on 'The Weekly Dispatch,' ii.
350

'Pictorial Times, The,' ii. 251

' Pictorial World, The,' ii. 298

' Pilot, The,' i. 355, 368

Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham,
i. 142, 160, 156, 165, 166, 178, 179,
182, 185, 187, 214, 234

Pitt, William, the younger, i. 142,
241, 242, 251, 295, 299,302, 320;
his newspaper policy, i. 244-247,
327, 328; his contributions to
' The Anti-Jacobin,' i. 321

Place, Francis, ii. 65
Plant, George, of ' The British Mer-
cantile Gazette' and ' Societv.' ii.
311

'Plebeian,' Steele's, i. 100

Police cases, the right of newspapers

to report, ii. 118
'Political Letters,' WiUiam Car-
penter's, ii. 66

408

INDEX

POL

'Political Eegister, The,' i. 200, 201,

204
Pollock, Walter Hemes, editor of

' The Saturday Review,' ii. 346
' Poor Man's Friend, The,' ii. ] 15
' Poor Blan's Guardian, The,' ii. 66-

16, 65, 113
'"'5 Pope, Alexander, i. 191 ; his work

for 'The Guardian,' i. 88; for

' The Grub Street Journal,' i.

125 ; on the journalists of his day,

i. 120, 121, 123 n., 139
'Porcupine,' Cobhett's, i. 329-331
Porson, Richard, i. 263
'Postboy, The,' i. 56, 57, 68, 69,

83 n., 102. 116
' Postboy Junior, The,' i. 69
'Postman, The,' i. 57, 60 «., 64, 119
Prentice, Archibald, ii. 257
'Press,' Disraeli's, ii. 191, 238, 250
' Press, The,' of Dublin, i. 384
Press Association, the, ii. 278, 279,

373
' Principal Passages,' Butter's, i. 11 n.
Prior, Matthew, his work on ' The

Examiner,' i. 76
' Protestant Postboy, The,' i. 79
Provincial Newspaper Society, the,

ii. 134, 135
Provincial Newspapers, i. 98, 245-

247 ; ii. 133-135, 257, 258, 275-

279, 328, 360-860
' Public Advertiser, I'he,' its antece-
dents, i. 441, 192 ; [''ielding's share

in, i. 140 ; under Henry Sampson

Woodfall, i. 183, 185, 186, 189,

192-196, 205, 225, 235, 236, 250 ;

its end, i. 285
' Public Intelligence,' L'Estrange's,

i.39
' Public Intelligencer,' Nedham's,i. 23
'Public Ledger, The,' i. 196, 197,

250, 286, 354; ii. 96, 100, 224,

226
'Public Occurrences truly stated,'

i. 45
' Public Spirit of the Whigs, The,'

i. 93
' Pue's Occurrences,' i. 384
' Punch, or the London Charivari,' ii.

117, 118, 252, 294, 298, 299
'Punch in London,' ii. 117
' Punchinello,' ii. 117
Purnell, Thomas, ii. 350

Eic
' QuARTBELT Review, The,' i. 326 n.,

ii. 22
' Queen, The,' ii. 295
' Queen's Messenger, The,' ii. 302-804
Quin, Edward, editor of ' The Tra-

veUer,' i. 288, 386, 855 ; ii 27
Quin, Michael Joseph, ii. 91

' Rahwax Dieectok, The,' ii. 132
' Railway Record, The,' ii. 132
' RaUway Telegraph, The,' ii. 234
' Railway Times, The,' ii. 132
Railways, their service to newspapers,

ii. 133, 134, 255, 256
Ralph, James, i. 132, 138, 139
' RamlDler,' Johnson's, i. 142
' Raynor's Morning Advertiser,' i. 125
Reach, Angus Bethune, his work on

' The Morning Chronicle,' ii. 154
Read, Samuel, his work on 'The

Illustrated London News,' ii. 296
' Reader,' Steele's, i. 95
'Reader, The,' of 1868, ii. 814,

315
' Reading Mercury, The,' i. 98 n., 382
'Read's Weekly Journal,' i. 102,

114, 115, 122, 197, 289
' Record, The,' ii. 126, 318
Redding, Cyrus, i. 349, 360, 866
Reeve, Henry, i. 165 n., 186, 207, 333
' Referee, The,' ii. 323, 324
'Reflector, The,' i. 345
' Rehearsal Revived, The,' i. 69
Reid, Thomas Wemyss, of ' The

Leeds Mercury,' ii. 362
' Remembrancer, The,' i. 139
' Representative,' John Murray's, ii.

22
' Representative,' Murdo Young's, ii.

22 w.
Renter, Julius, and his news agency,

ii. 259, 260, 279, 873
'Review,' Defoe's, i. 62-65, 69, 109
Reynolds, John Hamilton, ii. 147
' Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper,' ii.

124, 848
Ricardo, David, bis contributions to

' The Morning Chronicle,' i. 363
Richards, Colonel, editor of 'The

Morning Advertiser,' ii. 286
Richardson, Prederika ; see Mac-

donald, Mrs.
Richardson and Urquhart, i. 249

INDEX

409

RIC

' llichmond and Twickenham Times,
Tlie,' ii. 325

Ridpath, George, i. 55, 69, 80, 102,
103, 121

Eintoul, Robert Stephen, of ' The
Spectator,' ii. 46, 47, 81, 88, 249

Rivington, John, i. 197

Robinson, Henry Orabb, his work on
' The Times,' i. 283-285, 358, 362

Robinson, John R., of 'The Daily
News,' ii. 273, 281, 283

' Robinson Crusoe,' Defoe's, i. 101

Robson, James, i. 206 n.

Roche, Eugenius, ii. 25, 26

Roebuck, John Arthur, ii. 64, 89,
90, 100, 186, 212; his 'Pam-
phlets for the People,' ii. 84 n., 89

Rogers, Edward Dawson, ii. 277

Rose, George, i. 288

Roseljery, Lord, ii. 29

Rossetti, William Michael, ii. 314

' Runnymede Letters,' Disraeli's, ii.
109

Russel, Alexander, editor of ' The
Scotsman,' ii. 213

Russell, Edward Richard, of ' The
Liverpool Daily Post,' ii. 271, 362

JBussell, Lord John, ii. 95, 106, 107,
181, 212, 245

Russell, Dr. William, ii. 240

Russell, W. Clark, ii. 380

Russell, William Howard, his work
for ' The Times,' ii. 186, 195-197,
246, 263, 280-283 ; editor of ' The
Army and Navy Gazette,' ii. 252

Ryves, Bruno, his ' Mercurius Rus-
ticus,' i. 13 n.

' Si. James's Chronicle, The,'
i. 178, 197, 210, 237; ii. 23, 36

' St. James's Gazette, The,' ii. 340,
341, 344

St. John, Henry, Lord Bolingbroke,
i. 75 ; his work on 'The Examiner,'
i. 76 ; his share in the Stamp Act,
i. 80 ; his work on ' The Crafts-
man,' i. 116

.Saintsbury, George, ii. 335

.Sala, George Augustus, Lis work on
' The Illustrated Times,' ii. 251 ;
on ' The Daily Telegraph,' ii. 242,
270 ; on ' The Illustrated London
News,' ii. 298 ; on ' Pan,' ii. 309

SHO

Salisbury, John, i. 58, 60
Salisbury, Marquis of, on cheap news-
papers, ii. 230 ; his contributions to
' The Saturday Review,' ii. 248; to

'The Standard,' ii. 270
' Salisbury Postman, The,' i. 98 n.,

382
Sampson, Henry, editor of ' Fun,' ii.

298 ; of ' The Referee,' ii. 323 ; his

work on ' The Weekly Dispatch,'

ii.323
' Saturday Review, The,' ii. 232-234,

239, 246-248, 252, 291, 318, 342,

345, 346
Saunders, William, of the Central

Press, ii. 258
' Saunders's Newsletter,' i. 384 ; ii. 44
Savile, Sir George, i. 179
Say, Mary, i. 237, 238
'School Board Chronicle, The,' ii.

325
' Schoolmaster in London, The,' ii.

117
' Scots Courant, The,' i. 380
' Scots Postman, The, i. 98 n., 380
'Scotsman, The,' i. 386 ; ii. 44, 257,

271, 328, 362
Scott, Major Thomas, i. 23
Scott, Sir Walter, i. 386 ; ii. 5, 7
' Scout, The,' i. 23
Scroggs, Chief Justice, i. 43, 44, 49
Scudamore, F. J., his work on ' The

World,' ii. 306
Sheffard, William, old printer and

bookseller, i. 4, 5
' Sheffield Daily Telegraph, The,' ii.

257, 362, 363
' Sheffield Independent, The,' ii. 362
' Sheffield Iris, The,' i. 383
' Sheffield Mercury, The,' _i. 383 _
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, his relations

with the Hunts and ' The Exa-
miner,' i. 345, 348, 369, 370 ; ii.

37
' Sherborne Mercury, The,' i. 382
Sherbrooke, Lord ; see Lowe, Robert
Sheridan, Richard Brlnsley, i. 220,

247, 248, 254, 263
' Shipping and Mercantile Gazette,

The,' i. 286
Shirley, James, on 'newsmakers,'

i. 70n.
' Shoe and Leather Record, The,' ii.

318

410

INDEX

Sidmoutli, Lord; see Addington,

Henry
Sidney, Sir Robert, i. 2 n.
Simpson, WUliam, his work for

' The Illustrated London News,' ii.

296
Sims, George R., his work on ' The

Referee,' ii. 323 ; on ' The Weekly

Dispatch,' ii. 850
Sketchley, Arthur, ii. 350
Sleigh, Oolonel, of ' The Daily Tele-
graph,' ii. 235
Smith, Albert, his work on ' The

London Telegraph,' ii. 235
Smith, George, proprietor of ' The

Pall Mall Gazette,' ii. 273, 340
Smith, James, his work on ' John

Bull,' ii. 9
Smollett, Tobias, his work on ' The

Briton,' i. 164, 155, 158, 162
Smythe, George, seventh Lord

Strangford, his work on ' The

Morning Chronicle,' ii. 153 ; on

'The Saturday Review,' ii. 248
Smythe, Percy William, eighth Lord

Strangford, his work on ' The PaU

Mall Gazette,' ii. 340
' Society,' ii. 311,313
' South London Journal, The,' ii. 324
' South London Press, The,' ii. 325
Southey, Robert, his work on ' The

Morning Post,' i. 296, 301, 303
Sowle, Mrs. Tacey, i. 74 n.
Spankie, Robert, his work on ' The

Morning Chronicle,' i. 268
' Spectator,' Rintoul's, ii. 45-47,

49, 51, 54, 81, 101, 124, 169, 249 ;

under Meredith Townsend and

R. H. Button, ii. 250, 291, 292,

345
' Spectator,' Steele's and Addison's,

i. 58, 73, 81, 82, 85, 86
Spencer, Herbert, ii. 291
Spender, Edward, ii. 268
Spilsbury, J., i. 206 n.
' Sporting Clipper, The,' ii. 322
' Sporting Gazette, The,' ii. 320
' Sporting Life, The,' ii. 321, 322
' Sporting Times, The,' ii. 322
' Sportsman, The,' ii. 322
'Spy, The,' i. I3re.
' Stage, The,' ii. 323
' Stamford News, The,' i. 343, 344,
383

STU

Stamp, newspaper ; see Newspaper

stamp
' Standard, The,' as an evening

paper, ii. 23, 24, 30, 80, 89 n., 95,
104, 143, 169, 175, 202, 203, 225^
239 ; as a morning paper, ii. 240-

242, 270, 285, 336, 337, 357
Stanley, Dean, ii. 314
' Staple of News,' Ben Jonson's, i. 2
' Star, The,' i. 271, 272, 274, 288,

355, 372
' Star of Venus, The,' ii. 115
Star Chamber, newspaper censorship

under the, i. 7, 9, 27, 28
' Statesman, The,' i. 363, 355, 368 ;

ii. 28
Stationers' Company, the, i. 9 n., 29
' Statist, The,' ii. 319
Stead, WUliam Thomas, editor of

' The PaU MaU Gazette,' ii. 342-

344
' Steam Times, The,' ii. 132
Steele, Sir Richard, i. 71, 100 n. ;

gazetteer, i. 71, 75 ; his share in

' The Tatler,' i. 69, 71-73, 75 ; in

'The Medley,' i. 77 ;, in 'The

Spectator,' i. 73, 75, 83, 87 ; in

' The Guardian,' i. 87, 88, 94; in

' The Englishman,' i. 88-95 ; his

' Crisis,' i. 89 ; expulsion from the

House of Commons, i. 90, 93 ;

' The Town,' i. 95 ; ' The Reader,'

i. 95 ; ' The Plebeian,' i. 100 ; ' The

Theatre,' i. 100
Stephen, Sir James Fitziame.'. ii.

248
Stephen, Leslie, ii. 314
Sterling, Edward, of 'The Times,'

i. 284, 358; ii. 16, 82-84, 108,

lll»i.
Stewart, Dugald, i. 385
Stockdale's case, i. 239
Stoddart, Sir John, his work on

' The Times,' i. 359 ; on the ' New

Times,' i. 359-360 ; ii. 19
' Stoke-upon-Trent Narrative of

Events, The,' ii. 218
Strahan, William, i. 196
Strangford, Lord; see Smythe, George

and Percy William
Sti-eet, Peter, of 'The Courier,'

i. 275, 277, 278, 310-313
Stuart, Catherine, i. 269, 294 n.
Stuart, Charles, i. 269

INDEX

411

Stuart, Daniel, early occupations,
i. 268-270, 272 ; his management
of 'The Morning Post,' i. 271-
274,279, 287,292-309; of 'The
Courier,' i. 274-279, 288, 309-
314
Stuart, Peter, i. 269 ; his share in
' The Star,' i. 271, 272, 288 ; in
' The Oracle,' i. 293
Sullivan, T: D., editor of ' The

Nation,' ii. 366
' Sun, The,' i. 282 n., 288, 289, 365,

367, 368 ; ii. 26, 27, 95
Sun Fire Office, i. 56 n.
' Sunday Times, The/ ii. 124, 236,

354
Supple, Mark, i. 287 n.
'Supplement, The,' i. 68
Sussex, Duke of, as a leader-writer,

ii. 90 n.
Swift, Jonathan, his contributions to
'The Spectator,' i. 73; to ' The
Examiner,' i. 78, 79, 88 ; on the
newspaper stamp, i. 80, 82 ; ' The
Public Spirit of the Whigs,'
i. 93 ra. ; ' The Drapier's Letters,'
i. 117 n.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, his
contributions to ' The Examiner,'
ii. 291
' Tablet, The,' ii. 126-129
' Tatler, The,' i. 69, 70, 71-73, 75
Tatteraall, proprietor of ' The Morn-
ing Post,M. 271
Taxes on Knowledge, Association for

the Bepeal of the, ii. 211, 216
Taylor, John, of 'The Morning
Post,' and 'The Sun,' i. 224,
368 n.
Taylor, John Edward, of 'The Man-
chester Guardian,' ii. 44, 278, 279,
362
Taylor, P. A., ii. 291
Taylor, Tom, ii. 186, 299
' Telegraph,' the first, i. 273
Tenniel, John, ii. 118
'Test, The,' i. 143

Thackeray, William Makepeace, his
work on ' The Morning Chronicle,'
ii. 91, 98 ; on ' The Constitutional,'
ii. 98, 99 ; on ' The Times,' ii. 108,
109 ; on ' Punch,' ii. 118 ; on ' The
Britannia,' ii. 131 ; his quarrel
with Edmund Yates, ii. 300

'Theatre,' Steele's, i. 100 n.
Theatrical advertisements, i. 141 n.,

196

Thomas, George, his work for ' The

Illustrated London News,' ii. 297

Thomas, William, his work on ' The

Dlustrated London News,' and

' The Graphic,' ii. 297

Thompson, Alfred, his work on

'Pan,' ii. 809
Thompson, Henry Yates, proprietor
of The Pall Mall Gazette,' ii. 340,
843
Thomp.son, Nathaniel, i. 41
Thompson, R.,i. 209-211
Thornton, Bomiell, i, 142
Thornton, W. T., ii. 291
'Thursday Journal, The,' i. 110
Thwaites, of ' The Morning Herald,'

ii. 18, 19
Timbs, John, his work on ' The
Illustrated London News,' ii.
120
'Times, The,' its origin,' i. 254-269; '
under the first Walter, i. 260, 261,
266-268, 273, 279 ; ii. 20 ; under
the second Walter, i. 268, 279-
286, 346, 354-362 ;ii. 4, 20 ; under
Thomas Barnes, i. 360, 866 n. ;
ii. 15-17, 29, 69-87, 89, 100-111,
136; under Delane, ii. 137, 138, 144,
148, 151, 152, 166, 157, 159,
164-166, 168-208, 216, 218-221,
224, 233, 234, 243-246, 261-270,
286-288, 318, 319, 329-333, 338,
380; under Thomas Ohenery, ii.
383-335, 866, 357 ; under G. E.
Buckle, ii. 357
' Tomahawk, The,' ii. 299
Tooke, John Home, i. 235, 236
' Topical Times, The,' ii. 828
Torrens, Colonel Robert, ii. 27, 28
Torrens, W. T. McCullagh, ii. 249,

289
'Town, The,' ii. 115, 229
' Town and Country Magazine, The,'

i. 200, 201
' Town Talk,' ii. 300
Townsend, Meredith, of ' The Spec-
tator,' ii. 260
TraUl, H. D., his work on 'The Exa-
miner,' ii. 291 ; on ' The PaU Mali
Gazette ' and ' The St. James's
Gazette,' ii. 341

412

INDEX

'Traveller, The,' under Edward

Quin, i. 288, 336, 355; ii. 27;

under Colonel Torrens, ii. 27, 28,

36
Trenchard, John, i. 110-113
Trollope, Anthony, ii. 208 n., 274,

308
'True Briton, The,' i. 115, 331; ii.

28
' True Diurnal of Parliamentary In-

teUigence, Tlie,' i. 19
'True Patriot,' Fielding's, i. 132-135
'True Sun, The,' i. 289; ii. 91, 95,

98
' True Tablet, The,' ii. 129
Tutchin, John, i. 60 ; hia 'Observa-

tor,' i. 61
Twiss, Horace, his work on 'The

Times,' ii. 186
'Twopenny Dispatch, The,' ii. 58,

102, 113
Twyn persecuted for seditious print-
ing, i. 37-39
Tyndall, John, his work on 'Nature,'

ii. 316

' Union Stak, The,' i. 384

* Universal Chronicle, The,' i. 144,

197
' Universal Intelligencer, The,' i. 50
' Universal Spectator, The.' i. 109

' VAOTir Faie,' ii. 302, 304
Venables, Gilbert, his work on ' The

Morning Chronicle,' ii. 163
'Virginia Gazette, The,' i. 389
Vizetelly, Henry, ii. 251
' Volunteer Evening Post, The,'

i. 384

WAaHOKN, LiETriEKTANi, and the

overland mail, ii. 137
Walker, Thomas, of 'The Dailv

News,' ii. 242, 272
Walmesley, Sir Joshua, ii. 223
Walpole, Horace, i. 120, 142, 160,

174, 200
"Walpole, Sir Robert, i. 87, 100 ; his

deJfence of Steele, i. 92, 96 ; his

newspaper policy, i. 96, 97, 123,

131

WHI

Walter, John, the first, his early

occupations, i. 254, 255, 281 ; his

' Daily Universal Register,' i. 254-

257 ; his management of ' The

Times,' i. 254, 266-268, 279,

366 m.
"Walter, John, the second, of 'The

Times,' i. 280-285,355-358; ii. 15,

16, 18 n., 66, 73, 109, 136, 143,

148, 164, 170, 171 n., 183, 184
"Walter, John, the third, ii. 183, ] 84
"Walter press, the, ii. 255
' Watchman,' Coleridge's, i. 296
' "Watchman, The,' of 1835, ii. 120
Watson, James, ii. 55, 57
Watts, Alaric Attila, ii. 23
Webster, Benjamin, ii. 320
' Weekly Budget, The,' ii. 347
' Weekly Chronicle, The,' ii. 124
' Weekly Dispatch, The,' i. 291 ; ii.

101-103, 124, 125, 227, 253, 321,

323, 348-354
' Weekly Echo, The,' ii. 354
' Weekly Journal,' Mist's, i. 102, 106
'Weekly Journal,' Read's, i. 102,

106
' Weekly News,' Butter's, i. 4-6
'Weekly Packet, The,' i. 44, 102,

192
' Weekly Review,' Defoe's, i. 62
' Weekly Thnes, The,' ii. 123, 124,

227, 354
' Weekly Times and Echo, The,' ii.

354
Weir, William, editor of ' The Daily

News,' ii. 143, 164, 242
WelMngton, Duke of, ii. 23, 24, 30-

32
' West of England Conservative,

The,' ii. 189 n.
' Western Courier, The,' ii. 161
'Western Daily Mercury, The,' ii.

258
' Western Daily Press, The,' ii. 361
'Western Morning News, The,' ii.

258, 278, 328
' Westminster Gazette, The,' i. 197
' Westminster Review, The,' ii. 36,

61
Wharton, Duke of, i. 116, 116, 122
Wheble, John, i. 209-211
' Whig Dresser, The,' ii. 117
' "Whig Examiner, The,' i. 77
' Whisperer, The,' i. 69, 74

INDEX

413

"White, Rowland, i. 2 n.
'WTiitehall Evening Post, The,'

i. 107, 108, 119, 210, 223
' WhitehaU Review, The,' ii. 308
Whitehurst, Felix, hia work on ' The

Daily Telegraph,' ii. 271
Whitty, Michael James, ii. 213
Whorlow, H., ii. 135 n.
Wilkes, John, i. 135, 156, 217, 218 ;

hia 'North Briton,' i. 157-177;

his quarrel with parliament, i. 172-

181 ; his support of the parliamen-
tary reporters, i. 211, 212 ; and
'The Middlesex Journal,' 198-

200
Wilkinson, Nathaniel, i. 114
"Williams, John, fined for libelling

Fox, i. 234
"Williams, Robert, his work on ' The

Examiner,' ii. 291 ; on ' The

"Weekly Dispatch,' ii. 350
Williamson, Sir Joseph, i. 40
Wills, WiUiam Henry, ii. 118, 143
WUson, Alexander J., his work on

'The Standard,' ii. 337
Wilson, E. D. J., his work on ' The

Times,' ii. 334, 335
Wilson, James, editor of ' The

Economist,' ii. 131
Winehilsea, Earl of, his work on

'The World,' ii. 306
Winnington, Sir Francis, i. 44
Winnington, Sir Thomas, i. 128
Wither, George, his ' Mercuiius Rus-

ticus,' i. 13 n.
Wolcott, John (Peter Pindar), i. 224,

271
Wood, Sir Charles, and ' The Times,'

ii. 182
WoodfaU, George, i. 192

TOU

Woodfall, Henry, the elder, i. 141,
191

WoodfaU, Henry, the younger,
i. 141, 192

Woodfall, Henry Sampson, of 'The
Public Advertiser,' i. 192-196,
205, 226, 229, 234, 236, 238, 250,
285

Woodfall, WiUiam, of ' The Morn-
ing Chronicle' and 'The Diary,'
i. 192, 206-208, 210, 217-220,
224, 225, 234. 250, 261

Woods, Nicholaa Augustua, ii. 196 n.

Wordaworth, WiUiam, his contri-
butions to ' The Morning Post,'
i. 303 ; to ' The Courier,' i. 314

' World,' Edward Morris's, i. 142

' World, The,' of 1787, i. 260

'World,' Stephen Bourne's, ii. 45,,
126

'World,' Edmund Yates's, ii. 299,
304-308

Wright, T., i. 210

Wright, Thomas, of 'The Morning
Herald,' ii. 18

Wyndham, Sir William, i:'90

Yates, Edmxtnd, his work on ' The
Illustrated Times,' ii. 251, 300,
312 ; on ' The Morning Star ' and
'The Evening Star,' ii. 271, 312 ;
on ' Town Talk,' ii. 300 ; on ' The
World,' ii. 304-308
' York Herald, The,' ii. 362
' York Mercury, The,' i. 382
' Yorkshire Post, The,' ii. 276, 362
Young, Ai'thur, i. 384
Young, Murdo, ii. 22 n., 26, 27

THE END

PKINTED BJ

SPOmSWOOUE AND CO., NEW-STBEET SQUARE

LONDON

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

A MEMOIE OF SIE PHUIP SIDNEY. One volume,

8vo. 1862.

' This is a very good book indeed. The author has much taste, much sense,
and considerable historical insight — qualities which are essential in a biographer of
Sir Philip Sidney. He has further followed an excellent fashion of the day in
ransacking the State Paper Office, and his industry has disinterred several docu-
ments which throw light on obscure points in Sidney's history.'

Sattjedat Review, April 5, 1862.

' Sir Philip Sidney is undoubtedly the most striking character of an age
which, more than any other, has coloured our national history with a romantic
hue. Mr. Fox Bourne's elegant and discriminating biography brings into juxta-
position many details which before threw no light upon his character, and enables
us to understand more fully the feelings of admiration which he inspired, and the
fervent language in which his praises have been sung. The author has evidently
written with the deepest interest and sympathy for his subject. The whole work
bears the marks of diligent and careful research, and of a sincere desire to ascer-
tain and teU the truth.' London Ebview, April 19, 1862.

' Possessing industry, discrimination, love for his subject, and admiration for
his hero's character, Mr. Bourne has succeeded in producing a volume which for
pure interest has scarcely been equalled, certainly not excelled, for many a day.
.... As an illustration of the inner life of the court of Elizabeth, it possesses a
high value ; as a, suggestive chronicle of the political movements of the day, it
has even more worth ; as the history of the life of a preux chevalier, it is worth
most of all.' MOENING HebaI/D, April 22, 1876.

'A distinct view of this famous representative man is an addition to the
treasures of English literature, for which all readers wUl be grateful. Mr. Fox
Bourne has given to the public the result of lengthened and laborious researches
in a volume which testifies to the care and the zeal with which the writer has
studied his subject.' Morning- Post, April 23, 1862.

' We have in the volume before us the details of the active noble life of
Sidney, sought out with great diligence, and told with great abihty. Much as

By the same Author.

he has laboured to ponrtray Sidney as a soldier and a statesman, Mr. Bourne has
done no less justice to him in his character as a man of letters.'

Notes and Qubeies, May 17, 1862.

' Mr. Bourne has evidently written this book out of pure love for the subject ,.
and not out of the sordid spirit of bookmaking. The' life is as good a life of a
young man of birth and fame who lived in Elizabeth's reign as could be written
in that of Victoria.' Globe June, 16, 1862.

' We are glad to have so valuable a memoir of this English hero as that drawn
up by Mr. Bourne.' "Wbstmin.stee Bbvibw, July 1862.

' We thank Mr. Bourne for the pains he has taken to seek after original
documents, especially in that invaluable repository the State Paper Office. His
exertions have thrown additional light on several important points.'

Beitish Quaetbelt Review, July 1862.

n.

ENGLISH MEEOHANTS : Memoirs in Illustration of the

Progress of British Commerce. Two volumes, crown 8vo.

1866. Eevised Edition, One volume. 1886.

' To illustrate the history of British commerce by the lives of British
merchants, the author sketches, shadows forth, or tells in good substantial detail,
some three dozen biographies. . . These volumes are full of good, honest work,
not only of important commercial history, but of capital illustrative anecdotal
matter. In truth, they f arnish new and interesting chapters in the history of
England. We do not endorse every statement, nor agree in all the conclusions
at which the author arrives ; nevertheless, his work should be in the hands of all
interested in a subject which has never before been so skilfully handled.'

Athbn^TJM, December 22, 1 866.

' Mr. Pox Bourne, the author of a creditable " Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney,"
has applied the industry a.nd research which distinguished that biography to the
preparation of a very useful work on the history of British commerce ; and the
result is a very entertaining and suggestive book.'

Pall Mall Gazette, February 12, 1867.

' Mr. Fox Bourne, who has already earned an honourable place for himself in
literature by his valuable life of Sir Philip Sidney, has here extracted out of our
commercial annals those chapters which possess most human interest. As com-
merce has been, for many centuries, the principal vent for British energy, we gain
from personal notices of its votaries a more complete view of the national
character, both in its strength and in its weaknesses, than we could easily obtain
from any other source. . . . The influence of commerce upon science, ait, and
manufactures receives pretty considerable illustration in these volumes, and is, to
our mind, of far greater interest than the development of the vast resources of
this country. To the latter topic Mr. Bourne does ample justice ; but the chief

By the same Author.

value of his book seems to us more in connection with the points wliich we liMve
noticed than with any other.' Contempoeaey Review, July 18«7.

' The author of this work has done good service by collecting in the cunipass
of two volumes the story of the founders and magnates of British commerce.
Mr. Bourne lias done his work carefully and well. He has made no pretence to
fine writing, but has told his story simply and naturally, with just enough of
domestic story and incident to give a life interest in these great merchants of the
past. It is a book which should be read by everyone having an interest in the
mercantile greatness of our country.' Siandaed, September 9, 1867.

III.

EXGLISH SEIMEN UNDER THE TUDOES. Two

volumes, post 8vo. 1868.

I

' Jlr. Bourne appears to have taken the illustration of the progress of British
commerce as his peculiar mission. We had occasion a little time ago to speak in
terms of high commendation o£ his " Lives of Bn^lisli Marchau -s." He has now
supplemented his previous work by some delightful memoirs of " English Seamen
under the Tudors." Mr. Bourne's style of writing is peculiarly adapted to these
short sketches. He has the art of presenting all the salient features of a life in a
few tersely written pages. His narratives are sparkling and graphic, and abound-
ing with personal interest, and yet never fail in that restraint and dignity which
befit a work professing to convey solid information and lo be of real value to the
student. He has also the rare merit of being able to resist all temptation to what,
is called fine writing. He has sufficient discernment of tiie romance and poeiry
incident to the subjects of his memoirs to preserve him from making his narratives
mere records of dry facts, but also suflicient good sense to prevent his po3try ami
romance from giving an air of unreality to his history. And thus it come? to pass
that his pages are pleasant to read, and full of life and vigour, and yet have a
peculiar impression of reality, and carry with them the idea that they are trust-
worthy and unesaggerated records of facts. . . .Of all these worthies Mr.
Bourne gives us graphic and clear accounts, in pages teeming wiih adventure
and abounding with the most interesting information.'

GuAEDtAN, September 23, 18(iS.

IV.

THE STOEY OF OUE COLONIES ; with Sketches of
their Present Condition. One volume, crown 8vo. 1869.

' " The Story of our Colonies " deserves to be noticed as a singularly felicitous
attempt to combine instruction with amusement, and to weave from the tnaterials
of comparatively recent history a work which, even to the young, will have tlie
charm of romance. At first sight, the idea of making the history of the Britisli
colonies really attr.ictive to any other than statesmen or men of business might

KE

By the same Author.

seem delusive ; but was it not Charles Lamb who expatiated on 1 he real poetry
that was to be found jjerdue in a common mercantile invoice, and is there any
reason why Newfoundland or New Zealand should be suggestive of nothing
beyond the mere prose of imports and exports, or squabbles between local
politicians and Downing Street? Mr. Bourne supplies an answer to the last
question, the completeness of which will hardly be credited by any one who does

not peruse his book But Mr. Bourne is entitled to the credit of doing more

than merely compiling a summary of the deeds of adventurous Englishmen with
a view to the exaltation of our national self-love. He depicts faithfully the
darker as well as the brighter sides of our colonial history, and enables us to trace
clearly the consequences of past mistakes in existing weakness and discontents.
Nothing can well be more instructive than this timely peep at the errors of the
past.' Daily Telegraph, January 10, 1870.

V.

THE LIFE OF THOMAS, LOED COCHRANE, TENTH
EAKL OF DUNDONALD, G.C.B. By Thomas, Eleventh
Earl of DuNDONALD, and H. E. Fox Boukne. Two volumes,
8vo. 18(S9.

\_iajytract from Preface Try the late Lord Diindonald.']

'At the beginning of last year. I placed all the necessary documciits in the
hands of my friend, Mr. H. R. Fox Bourne, asking him to handle them with the
same zeal of research and impartiality of judgment which he has shown in his
already published works. I have also furnished him with my own reminiscences
of so much of my father's life as was personally known to me, and he has availed
himself of all the help that could be obtained from other sources of information,
both private and public'

'The present Lord Dundonald has done wisely in securing the aid of Mr.
Fox Bourne's practised pen in this memoir of his father's life. Mr. Bourne has
brought with him to his present task the same powers of graphic description and
clear elucidation of his subject which are so pleasantly familiar to the readers of
his former works. It is always delightful, in taking up a book bearing his name
upon the title-page, to feel sure that we shall encounter neither spasmodic
attempts at strong writing nor pretentious efforts at word-painting, but an earnest,
straightforward narrative, intelligibly written in good plain English.'

Guardian, August 11, 1869.

VI.

THE ROMANCE OF TRADE. One volume, crown 8vo.
1871.

By the same Author.

VII.

THE LIFE OF JOHN LOCKE. Two volumes, 8vo.
1876.

' A new life of one of the greatest of English philosophers was much needed,
and Mr. Fox Bourne has shown himself to be quite equal to the emergency. We
do not know how Locke and his works could be more ably and effectively brought
to the consideration of an age that does not keep philosophers much in mind than
in the two volumes (comprising nearly a thousand pages) now before us. .
Fresh materials for an aocoxrnt of the great philosopher's life and worlcs have
been collected. In the matter of correspondence alone, Mr. Fox Bourne has been
enabled to add upwards of two hundred letters, some of which are of great in-
terest. . . . The course of his life, the liistory of his mind, the chronicle of his
actions, the narration of his theories, and his practice — all is clearly told in un-
confused succession by Mr. Fox Bourne, who holds all the threads of the story
without entangling them, and who, loving his hero, does not wrong him by a
blind idolatry.' Notes and Queries, May 6, 1876.

' To revive the memory of such a man is obviou.'ily an undertaking of much
moment, and Mr. Fox Bourne has felt the responsibility of his task. He spares
no pains ; his " Life of Locke " evinces much editorial care, and contains novel
information. . . . Whilst reading Mr. Fox Bourne's memoir, we feel that we are
in the presence of a man who was intelligent throughout every pulse of his
existence, affectionate and tender, bright and playful in thought, true not only to
the cause of truth, but to all he loved and to himself. . Nor is it till those
years are passed that Mr. Fox Bourne is enabled to bring to light that new aspect
of Locke which is the chief merit of his book ; to present Locke as the ardent
scientilic investigator, the writer of verses of society, the Commi.ssioner of the
Boaid of Trade, and, above all, as the loving and much loved friend. ... It is
not, however, for the new idea we gain, of Locke during his stay in Holland, or in
the office of the Board of Trade, tliat we are so much indebted to Mr. Fox Bourne
as for his description of Locke during his declining years.'

ATHEN.a;uM, May 13, 1876.

' It certainly seems remarkable that we should have had to wait so long for a
complete biography of Locke ; but, as it is, there is perhaps little reason to regret
the delay. One important part, at least, of the materials has lately become more
accessible than it ever was before ; and it is satisfactory to find that a task so
long neglected, or but partially touched, has at last been taken up bj"^ good and
careful hands. Mr. Fox Bourne has put much honest work of his own into the
fulfilment of his task, and, of course, has now and then to call special attention
to the results of his own inquiries ; but he never forgets that the first duty of a
biographer is to put his subject before himself. The result is a book which is
clear and interesting to read, and will be of permanent value to the students of
Locke's work and times.' Hatubdav Eevibw, May 27, 1876.

' Mr. Fox Bourne is able to state most justly in his preface tliat more than
half of the contents of this work is derived from hitherto unused manuscripts

By the same Author.

and that by them, apart from their independent worth, altogether new light is
thrown on most of the information that is not actually new.'

Academy, May 27, 1876.

' It was left to the author of the present volumes to collect from different
sources all the writings of Locke that hare never yet been given to the world,
and to weave them into a clear and consistent narrative. And it will be admitted
by all who go carefally through the book that he has done his work remarkably
well. Mr. Fox Bourne has spared no pains to obtain every scrap of writing left
by Locke, and to extract from it whatever fresh impression it conveys either as
to his character or intellectual development. Everywhere the bio^^rapher keeps
himself in the background.' Globe, June 8, 1871).

' Tt is not creditable to English philosophy that the biography of John Locke,
who, in a more real sense than Bacm, was its founder, has so Ion? remained
unwritten. We owe it to the interest that has of late extended in regard t_i all
that concerns psychological inquiry that this stigma has been at last removed, and
that we are able to welcome a biography which, if it does not in all respects realise
the ideal of the philosophical student, supplies us with so much information about
the man, and gives such full illustritions of his character, that we are brought
into living contact with liim, and recognise him in his " habit as he lived." . .
Mr. Pox Bourne has striven, and striven succi^ssfull}', to give us the lifelike
presentation of the man and Englishman by tracing his relati'ins through the
varied stages of a long and not uneventful career. He has shown us how, in the
view of Locke himself, his philosophical work was a minor consideration, as in its
origin his immortal treatise on the " Human Understanding '' was almost accidental.
We are made to see the philosopher in the disohargs of hia important work as an
educational reformer, and the aj)ostle of toleration, connecting himself with all
the varied interests of a stormy bit fruitful period oE En>;lish history. . . .
Without falling into the opposire error of making the Life of Locke a general
history of his time, his biographer has interwoven the private and public events of
the period skilfully together, .■ao that we see Locke, not as an abstract philosopher,
but as the child of his age, who was, to a large degree, the outcome of a period
which, nevertheless, he powerfully helped to mould. . . He has given us a
work which supplies an unmistakable want in the literature of English philosophy,
and which will make the thoroughly English pictures of the philosopher familiar
to the present generation. . . . We cordially welcome what in all respects is an
excellent piece of biography, and we have little doubt that it will become »
standard work in English literature.'

Beitish Quaeteely Review, July 1876.